Skywatching

Sure, humans have looked to the stars for millennia, but it's still difficult to step into the shoes of all those people.

This is a good week to check out progress of the planet Mars as it continues toward an unusually close approach to the Earth in early fall.

Tonight (Feb. 27), as darkness is falling, be sure to look toward the west-southwest sky to spot another beautiful celestial tableau formed by a lovely crescent moon and the brilliant planet Venus.

The constellation of Canis Major is visible in the winter sky this month.

A cityscape view captured from the highest point of Lisbon shows the first full moon of the year, rising above the capital of Portugal on Jan. 10, with the Tagus River visible in the background.

A starry night scene captured at the end of summer from the Dark Sky Alqueva reserve in Portugal shows the Milky Way's galactic arc shimmering above a dead tree in Noudar Park.

You can catch the sky show, too, if you're willing to rise before the sun.

The Red Planet briefly disappeared behind the moon for skywatchers in North America on Tuesday (Feb. 18), providing a rare celestial treat for early risers and astrophotographers.

Pluto's discovery wouldn't have been possible, astronomers have realized, without the calculations of a mathematician whom history has forgotten.

As the waning crescent moon rises in the small hours of the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 18, skywatchers will be preparing for an unusual event.

A night-sky photo features a lonely stargazer admiring the beautiful constellation of Orion, the hunter — and it's strangely dimming star Betelgeuse.

The more astronomers consider the advent of satellite megaconstellations, the more anxious they get.

This deep-space image shows the Heart and Soul nebulas shining brightly in reddish hues from energized hydrogen.

The Dipper is more than just a bright and familiar star pattern. It's a compass, a clock, a calendar and a ruler all rolled into one!

One of the brightest stars you'll see in the sky these days is Betelgeuse, whose red tones provide a fun skywatching target in February.

It's some next-level skywatching: Scientists are using images captured by NASA's InSight lander to look for meteors on Mars.

Where should you go to get the best look at the dancing, dazzling display known as the aurora borealis?

The full moon of February, called the Snow Moon, occurs Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2:33 a.m. EST (0733 GMT).