Small ants clean larger ants

A scientist has spotted smaller ants cleaning much larger ones, marking the first known case of interspecies ant grooming. In fact, it’s the first known case of this behavior across all insects, said entomologist Mark Moffett of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on April 13, 2026.

Moffett observed and documented this phenomenon while studying ant behavior in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. During his research, he noticed that harvester ants actively seek out cone ants and allow them to groom their bodies.

Moffet published his discovery on April 12, 2026, in the peer-reviewed journal Ecology and Evolution.

1st known case of interspecies ant grooming

The behavior begins when a harvester ant leaves its nest and approaches a cone ant colony. Instead of showing aggression or defensive behavior, the large ant stops abruptly, often standing still with its mandibles open and its body held high.

Within seconds, cone ants emerge from the nest and climb onto the harvester ant’s body. They move quickly across its surface, using their mouthparts to lick and scrape tiny particles from its exoskeleton. The cleaning is deliberate and methodical, covering the head, legs and even sensitive areas near the mandibles.

These interactions vary widely in duration. Some last less than 15 seconds, while others continue for several minutes. In more intense encounters, multiple cone ants work simultaneously on a single harvester ant, creating a coordinated cleaning session. Remarkably, even when cone ants enter the open jaws of the larger ant, no aggression occurs. Moffett said:

The potentially dangerous harvester ants even permit the visitors to groom between their open jaws.

Once the interaction ends, the harvester ant suddenly jerks its body and dislodges the smaller ants with force before resuming its normal activities.

Why do small ants clean larger ants?

Scientists are still working to understand the evolutionary logic behind this unusual relationship. But early evidence suggests both species may gain specific benefits from the interaction.

Cone ants appear to consume microscopic particles found on the surface of harvester ants. These particles may include fragments of seed material or organic debris collected during foraging. Interestingly, cone ants only engage in this behavior with living harvester ants and completely ignore dead individuals placed near their nests. This suggests the interaction depends on chemical cues or movement from the host ant.

For harvester ants, the benefit may lie in improved hygiene. While they already perform mutual grooming within their own colonies, cone ants can access regions of the body that are difficult for nestmates to reach. This may help reduce parasites, fungal spores or bacterial buildup that could otherwise affect colony health. Moffett said:

Given the usual tendencies of ants, I first assumed that I was observing aggression. But the larger ants seemed to seek the attention of the smaller ants by first visiting their nests and then allowing the small ants to lick and nibble all over them.

A discovery that mirrors ocean life

This interaction strongly resembles cleaning systems found in marine environments, where small fish and shrimp remove parasites from much larger fish, including predators like sharks. Moffett commented:

This new ant species is the insect equivalent of cleaner fish in the ocean.

The similarity raises interesting questions about whether such cooperative behavior evolves independently in different environments. In both cases, a smaller species gains food while a larger species receives hygiene benefits.

What this means for insect research

Moffett emphasizes that this discovery highlights how much remains unknown about insect behavior in natural environments. He argues that field observation continues to play a crucial role in uncovering complex ecological relationships that laboratory studies might miss. Moffett said:

All kinds of amazing discoveries are still there to be made outside of the lab. Finding new species and behaviors in nature often requires us to pay close attention to the small things — including the ants.

He also notes that the behavior was easy to overlook at first, as it occurs quickly and in a remote desert environment. However, repeated observations confirmed that it was not accidental but a consistent pattern.

The finding opens new research directions, including whether similar interspecies grooming systems exist elsewhere and how widespread this type of cooperation might be among insects.

Bottom line: In the first known case of interspecies ant grooming, small ants have been spotted cleaning larger ants. A researcher spotted this rare behavior in Arizona.

Source: The First Cleaner Ant? A Novel Partnership in the Arizona Desert

Via Smithsonian

Read more: Queen ants found giving birth to 2 different species

Read more: Ants, little but tough: Lifeform of the week

The post Small ants clean larger ants in a surprising twist of nature first appeared on EarthSky.

Sun news April 20: Auroras easing after stormy weekend

Today’s top story: Earth’s magnetic field remained restless over the past 24 hours. Our planet is still feeling the influence of a coronal hole, which has been sending a stream of high-speed solar wind our way for several days now. This stream triggered periods of G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storming over the weekend. Conditions calmed a little to active (Kp 4) last night, and unsettled-to-active conditions should linger through today and tomorrow before the coronal hole’s influence fades.

Past 24 hours of sun news

(11 UTC April 19 – 11 UTC April 20)

Flare activity

Over the past day, solar activity held at low levels. In total, the sun produced 10 flares: 1 C-class (common) and 9 B-class (weak).

• Strongest flare: C1.0 from AR4419, peaking at 8:33 UTC on April 20.
• Lead flare producer: AR4419 fired at least 5 of the 10 tracked flares, including the only C-class event. Meanwhile, AR4416 contributed 3 B-class flares. Some B-class events came from unidentified sources, likely tied to filament activity near the equator in the east.

Sunspot regions

Currently, the Earth-facing solar disk shows a sparse sunspot population. The estimated international sunspot number – a measure of long-term solar activity – sits around 40. That is well below the Solar Cycle 25 average for this phase.

AR4419 (beta-gamma) remains the most complex region on the disk. Despite its beta-gamma setup, it showed little overall change during the period. Even so, this region remains the most likely candidate for any jump in activity over the coming days.

Blasts from the sun?

A filament eruption occurred in the southeast around 16 UTC on April 19. Shortly after, a narrow coronal mass ejection (CME) appeared in coronagraph imagery. Forecasters are currently analyzing this CME for any Earth-directed component. However, the bulk of the material will most likely miss Earth. Available coronagraph imagery showed no other Earth-directed CMEs during the period.

Past 24 hours in space weather

Solar wind

Solar wind conditions remained elevated throughout the period. The coronal hole high-speed stream continued to dominate conditions around Earth. The Bz component swung between north and south, with each southward dip opening the door for solar wind energy to pour into Earth’s magnetic shield and fuel auroras.

Earth’s magnetic field

Over the past 24 hours, Earth’s magnetic field held mostly at unsettled-to-active levels. However, G1 (minor) storm intervals (Kp 5) were recorded between 6:00–9:00 UTC on April 19. Currently, conditions are easing back toward unsettled-to-active levels as the coronal hole stream gradually wanes.

What’s ahead? Sun–Earth forecast

Flare activity forecast

Forecasters expect low levels of flare activity through April 22. A chance exists for isolated C-class flares. In addition, a slight chance remains for M-class (moderate) flares, primarily from AR4419. That region retains its beta-gamma setup and remains the primary candidate for any jump in activity. X-class (strong) flare chances remain very low given the current sparse sunspot population.

Geomagnetic activity forecast

• April 20 (Monday): Expect unsettled-to-active conditions (Kp 3–4). A reducing chance of isolated G1 (minor) storm intervals (Kp 5) remains as the coronal hole stream continues to taper off. Auroras may still reach high latitudes such as Alaska, northern Canada, Iceland and northern Scandinavia. A slight chance of visibility extends to Seattle, Edinburgh and Oslo during any brief Kp 5 intervals.
• April 21 (Tuesday): Expect unsettled-to-active conditions (Kp 3–4). A slight chance of G1 (minor) storm levels remains as the high-speed stream continues to wane. As a result, aurora viewing should become increasingly limited to the highest latitudes.
• April 22 (Wednesday): Expect quiet-to-unsettled conditions (Kp 1–3) as the coronal hole stream moves past its peak and solar wind returns to mostly background levels.

Sun news April 19: Auroras light up skies as G2 storm continues

Auroras danced across northern skies last night, as Earth remained under the influence of a powerful coronal hole high-speed stream. These charged solar particles had started sweeping in late on April 17. The geomagnetic storm intensified over the past day, climbing from G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) levels.

What fueled the display? Solar wind speeds surged past 600 km/s, and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) swung strongly southward to -14 nT. Those factors opened the door for charged particles to pour in and energize Earth’s upper atmosphere. As a result, colorful displays were visible from locations as far south as Toronto, Chicago, and northern England, keeping aurora-watchers busy overnight.

Looking ahead, the fast stream should peak near 700 km/s on April 19. That means another round of G1-to-G2 storming is possible before conditions gradually ease. Share your beautiful aurora photos with us!

Past 24 hours of sun news

(11 UTC April 18 – 11 UTC April 19)

Flare activity: Over the past day, solar activity held at low levels, with no C-class or stronger flares recorded during the reporting window. Only 4 B-class flares were detected.

• Strongest flare: B4.4 from AR4416 (N20W87) at 23:13 UTC on April 18. This was a minor event, well below the threshold for any radio blackout. Notably, the period’s largest event in the broader NOAA summary was a C1.6 flare from AR4416 peaking at 7:04 UTC on April 18, just before our EarthSky reporting window opened.
• Lead flare producer: AR4416 fired 3 of the 4 B-class events, though it is now rotating beyond the western limb. Meanwhile, AR4419 produced only a single B4.9 flare.

Sunspot regions: Currently, the Earth-facing solar disk shows 3 numbered active regions, though the disk remains notably quiet with an estimated international sunspot number around 47. AR4416 (alpha) continued rotating around the western limb during the period. Its geoeffective influence is now waning as it moves out of view. AR4419 (beta-gamma) is the most magnetically complex region on the disk and is approaching the central meridian, a geoeffective position. Despite the beta-gamma classification, it produced only a single B-class flare during the period. Even so, this region remains the primary candidate for any M-class activity in the coming days. AR4415 (alpha) remained unchanged and magnetically simple throughout the period.

Blasts from the sun? Available coronagraph imagery showed no Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) during the period. However, an approximately 30-degree-long eruptive filament lifted off the solar disk between 7:30 and 8:23 UTC on April 18, visible in GONG H-alpha and GOES-19 SUVI imagery. The associated CME erupted off the southeast limb, but modeling confirmed it will not impact Earth. In addition, a small chance remains for a glancing blow early on April 19 from a CME that left the sun on April 15. Forecasters expect this CME to pass south and east of Earth’s orbit, though a weak interaction cannot be entirely ruled out.

Past 24 hours in space weather

Solar wind: Solar wind conditions were significantly enhanced throughout the past day as the negative-polarity coronal hole high-speed stream continued to drive elevated conditions. Speeds rose from approximately 370–400 km/s early in the period to a maximum of around 600 km/s. The interplanetary magnetic field (CME) total field peaked at a strong 17 nT. The Bz component pointed mostly southward early in the period, reaching a maximum southward deflection of ?14 nT, highly favorable for aurora production. It then gradually swung weakly northward by the end of the period.

Notably, this is a large coronal hole that has increased in size since the previous solar rotation. As a result, speeds should continue climbing toward 700 km/s.

Earth’s magnetic field: Over the period, Earth’s magnetic field was significantly disturbed, reaching G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm levels. The Kp index reached 6 (G2) during the 6:00–9:00 UTC window on April 18. In addition, G1 (minor) storm intervals (Kp = 5) were recorded at 3:00–6:00 UTC and 9:00–12:00 UTC on April 18. The UK Met Office issued a Kp Alert for G1 conditions between 6:00 and 9:00 UTC on April 19, indicating storm-level activity persisted into the current day. Aurora was visible across northern latitudes, including Scotland, northern England, and similar geomagnetic latitudes.

The sun in recent days

Earlier sun images

Sun images from our community

More sun images from our community

We sometimes feature sun images obtained using hydrogen-alpha filters. Read why.

Bottom line: Sun news for April 20, 2026: Auroral displays started to ease after a weekend featuring G2 (moderate) storms. Unsettled-to-active conditions should linger through tomorrow.

Submit your photos here.

View community photos here.

The post Sun news: Auroras easing after stormy weekend first appeared on EarthSky.

Read more: Orange Aldebaran is the fiery eye of Taurus the Bull

Our charts are mostly set for mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. To see a precise view – and time – from your location, try Stellarium Online.

April 21 and 22 evenings: Moon, Jupiter and twin stars

Read more: Meet Gemini the Twins, home to 2 bright stars

April 22: Lyrid meteor shower

We’ve been moving inside the Lyrid meteor stream in space since around mid-month. So you could see a Lyrid meteor any time now. The peak morning will be April 22. Want to see more meteors this year? In this video, EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd shares 5 easy tips to help you make the most of this beautiful annual sky show. When to watch, where to look, how to avoid light pollution, and simple tricks to improve your chances of spotting more meteors – no telescope required. Watch in the player above or on YouTube.

Read more: All you need to know about Lyrid meteors

Don’t miss Venus and Jupiter!

April morning planets: Northern Hemisphere

The mid-April daytime planet parade

Our charts are mostly set for mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. To see a precise view – and time – from your location, try Stellarium Online.

April moon phases and alignments

Join EarthSky’s Marcy Curran in a video preview of the constellations, planets and astronomical events to watch out for this month. Highlights include a meteor shower and, hopefully, a bright comet!

April 24: 1st quarter moon

Want more? Here are 4 keys to understanding the moon’s phases.

April 24 and 25 evenings: Moon, Regulus and the Sickle

Read more: Leo the Lion and its easy to see backward question mark

April 28, 29 and 30 evenings: Moon and Spica

Read more: Spica, the bright beacon of Virgo, is 2 stars

April stars and constellations

If you’re out stargazing on any April evening, look for these stars and constellations high overhead in the evening sky. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness. And consider heading to a dark-sky site for the best views of the stars.

Our charts are mostly set for mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. To see a precise view – and time – from your location, try Stellarium Online.

April evening planets

April morning planets

Sky dome map for visible planets and night sky

Read more: Guy Ottewell explains sky dome maps

Heliocentric solar system visible planets and more

Read more: Guy Ottewell explains heliocentric charts.

Some resources to enjoy

For more videos of great night sky events, visit EarthSky’s YouTube page.

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Visit EarthSky’s Best Places to Stargaze to find a dark-sky location near you.

Post your own night sky photos at EarthSky Community Photos.

See the indispensable Observer’s Handbook, from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Visit Stellarium-Web.org for precise views from your location.

Almanac: Bright visible planets (rise and set times for your location).

Visit TheSkyLive for precise views from your location.

Bottom line: As darkness falls this evening, look for the young moon near Venus. A bit later, you’ll also spot the bright star Aldebaran and the delicate Pleiades cluster.

The post Visible planets and night sky guide for April first appeared on EarthSky.

• Searching for evidence of life on planets around other stars is difficult. A single detection of a certain chemical in an atmosphere or an unusual radio wave could signal life. But that result might be ambiguous and hard to verify.
• Scientists could instead look for patterns across groups of planets in distant solar systems, researchers in Japan suggest.
• Similar patterns on multiple planets might suggest that life has spread from one planet to its neighbors. Perhaps life itself has transformed conditions on the new planet, to make it more amenable. So similar patterns across groups of planets could be an alien life sign.

Science news, night sky events and beautiful photos, all in one place. Click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.

Suspiciously similar planets could be a sign of alien life

Scientists searching for life beyond Earth might listen for non-natural radio signals coming from space. Or they might focus on looking at starlight bounced from a distant planet, to try to learn the makeup of the planet’s atmosphere. Or – as described on April 15, 2026 by researchers in Japan – they might look for signs of life in groups of planets that are suspiciously similar.

The scientists said that similar patterns across a group of planets might suggest that life has spread from its home planet to neighboring planets. And life itself might have transformed the new worlds to accommodate its needs.

The current methods of looking for life through biosignatures (chemical or physical signs of life) or technosignatures (signs of alien technology) can be ambiguous. So a signature found among a cluster of planets would be stronger evidence than a single detection on one planet alone, these scientists say.

The new model suggests that if life can spread between planets and affect their observable properties, then detecting this could be a robust signature of life, with few false positives.

Astronomers use the word panspermia when speaking of life spreading between worlds. And the concept of altering a planet to suit an alien lifeform is called terraforming. Microbes that traveled via panspermia to another planet could alter the planet’s atmosphere or surface naturally. And an advanced alien civilization could terraform nearby planets artificially. Even humans have contemplated how we could someday terraform Mars to make it more habitable and earthlike.

Harrison B. Smith at the Earth-Life Science Institute, Institute of Science Tokyo, and Lana Sinapayen at Sony Computer Science Laboratories and National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan are the authors of the new study. They published their peer-reviewed findings in The Astrophysical Journal on April 9, 2026.

Our paper on detecting terraformed planets is finally published: doi.org/10.3847/1538…Context: we wanted a method to detect life in the universe that does not depend on any particular chemistry or hyperspecific definitions of life1/n#Astrobiology #ALife

— Lana Sinapayen (@sinalana.eurosky.social) 2026-04-10T01:21:28.458Z

An agnostic approach

The researchers are taking what they call an agnostic approach. That’s what they consider one not bound to any particular hypotheses or beliefs about alien life. So this approach seeks to overcome the limitations of of possible detections on single planets. Simple biosignatures are susceptible to false positives. Technosignatures are less susceptible, but they make strong assumptions about what kind of life could produce them.

Instead, the new approach seeks to find possible life signatures across multiple planets at a time. The signature could affect the observable properties of the planets in a similar way. Notably, this would be a stronger potential signature than on one single planet alone.

Basically, the approach is based on the assumption that life could spread between planets naturally. This is panspermia, where microbes or other cells could escape one planet – such as through an asteroid impact – and spread to other nearby planets.

In either of those two scenarios, life could alter the characteristics of the planets in similar ways. The statistical correlations between planet locations and their observable traits would be detectable.

A broad definition of life

Sinapayen described the process on Bluesky, saying:

We wanted a method to detect life in the universe that does not depend on any particular chemistry or hyperspecific definitions of life. So we started with the broadest definition we could think of: Life self-replicates and mutates.

If a form of life landed upon a new planet and survived, it would change the environment on that planet in a way that makes it closer to the origin planet; think of trees producing oxygen, for example. That would be true whether the lifeform is a bacteria, a whole ecosystem, or characters from Andy Weir’s books.

Our question: Without knowing whether any single planet has life on it, could you at least detect that some planets seem suspiciously related? The answer (through simulations): under some conditions, you can make that detection with high certainty and no false positives. You can say ‘there is an X percent chance terraformation is happening’ and point to the planets that are driving that percentage up.

‘Something must be happening’

Sinapayen continued:

The best part is that it’s not just ‘oh, these planets look similar, something must be happening.’ Our method specifically picks out planets that seem to have an ‘ancestor to descendant’ relationship through ‘self replication with mutation.’ Because when life replicates with mutation in physical space, on average the parents and children will be closer both in space and in characteristics than the parents and the grandchildren, for example. So you’re looking for a correlation of location and characteristics, not just characteristics.

Planets most likely to host life

The researchers also developed a new method to determine which planets might be the most likely to be habitable or host life. They did so by clustering planets based on their observable characteristics and spatial relationships. This provided clues as to which groups of planets had a high probability of being influenced by life. Smith said:

By focusing on how life spreads and interacts with environments, we can search for it without needing a perfect definition or a single definitive signal.

Sinapayen added:

Even if life elsewhere is fundamentally different from life on Earth, its large-scale effects, such as spreading and modifying planets, may still leave detectable traces. That’s what makes this approach compelling.

Bottom line: A new study from Japan suggests we could search for a sign of alien life by looking for a group of planets that are suspiciously similar. Alien life that spreads to neighboring planets would likely transform each new planet to be like their home planet.

Source: An Agnostic Biosignature Based on Modeling Panspermia and Terraforming

Via Earth-Life Science Institute

Read more: Lifeforms can planet-hop on asteroids and survive

Read more: Can air pollution help us find alien life?

The post Can we find alien life in groups of similar planets? first appeared on EarthSky.

• Galaxies and galaxy clusters move faster than they should. That’s why scientists proposed dark matter: an invisible substance whose mass would add an extra pull of gravity. But … we’ve never directly detected dark matter.
• So what if the laws of gravity as we know them don’t apply across space? One theory – called MOND, or Modified Newtonian Dynamics – suggests gravity behaves differently over vast distances.
• Now, by measuring gravity across hundreds of millions of light-years, a new study suggests it does behave the same on cosmic scales as close to home. It appears to behave as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein found.
• The new study strengthens the case for unseen dark matter existing in large amounts across space.

This story came originally from the University of Pennsylvania. Edits by EarthSky.

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Gravity works across the universe

Gravity, as Isaac Newton described it, is the familiar force that pulls a falling apple toward Earth.

Or, as described by Albert Einstein, gravity is a property of the fabric of spacetime. The greater the gravity, the more spacetime curves.

For decades, cosmologists have wondered if the laws of gravity – as described by Newton and Einstein – apply everywhere across space. Puzzling observations of unusually fast-moving galaxies have forced cosmologists like Patricio A. Gallardo of the University of Pennsylvania to revisit the fundamentals of physics. For example, these scientists explore whether the laws of gravity as described by Isaac Newton in the 1600s and Albert Einstein in the early 1900s truly apply everywhere. Gallardo said:

Astrophysics has been plagued by a massive discrepancy in the cosmic ledger. When we look at how stars orbit within galaxies or how galaxies move within galaxy clusters, some appear to be traveling way too fast for the amount of visible matter they contain.

This mismatch forces a choice between two radical conclusions. So according to Gallardo:

Either the universe contains concentrations of massive invisible ‘dark matter’ that provide extra gravitational pull or the fundamental equations for gravity need to be modified.

So Gallardo and his team set out to answer the question: do the laws of gravity as described by Newton and Einstein hold true across cosmic distances? Their recent study suggests the answer is yes.

Testing gravity across galaxy clusters

Researchers made observations with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), a telescope developed largely by Penn researchers led by Mark Devlin. Gallardo and collaborators tested gravity across galaxy clusters separated by hundreds of millions of light-years.

Their findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters on April 15, 2026, show that gravity’s strength weakens with distance. And those results are almost exactly as predicted by the equations developed by Newton and later incorporated into Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Gallardo said:

It is remarkable that the law of the inverse of the squares – proposed by Newton in the 17th century and then incorporated by Einstein’s theory of general relativity – is still holding its ground in the 21st century.

The confirmation that gravity behaves as predicted by the established theory over vast, extragalactic distances reinforces a fundamental pillar of modern science. Gallardo explains:

By showing that fundamental theories of gravity do not break down on the largest scales, the data effectively closes the door on a group of theories such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), that attempt to explain cosmic motions by modifying the laws of gravity.

When Newton proposed the inverse square relation, which states that gravity weakens in proportion to the square of the distance between objects, he was primarily concerned with describing the movements of objects in the solar system. This same principle has now been tested on masses and distances that were inconceivable in Newton’s day.

Understanding the universe’s speed limits

The universe’s galaxies – of which there are more than 200 billion – don’t move the way gravity alone says they should.

Following Newtonian logic, stars farther from a galaxy’s center should orbit more slowly. Instead, astronomers see the opposite. The outermost regions move faster than visible matter can account for. The same mismatch appears in galaxy clusters, where entire galaxies move too quickly for their mass.

Gallardo explained:

That is the central puzzle. Either gravity behaves differently on very large scales, or the universe contains additional matter that we cannot directly see.

Testing gravity across the cosmos

To test this, the researchers turned to ACT’s observations of light released about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. It’s been traveling across the universe ever since. It’s known as the cosmic microwave background.

As this ancient light passes through massive galaxy clusters, it is subtly altered by their motion. And it leaves behind faint imprints that astronomers can detect. By reading these distortions and measuring these motions across hundreds of thousands of clusters separated by tens of millions of light-years, the researchers determined how strongly gravity pulls on the largest structures in the cosmos. If modified gravity theories such as MOND were correct, the measurements would reveal a flatter gravitational fall-off.

Instead, the results landed almost exactly where both Newton’s and Einstein’s theories agree.

Because that prediction holds, the missing mass problem cannot be explained by changing gravity itself. That strengthens the case that an unseen component – dark matter – must be providing the extra pull.

The dark matter mystery

Understanding what dark matter is remains one of the biggest challenges in modern physics. According to Gallardo:

This study strengthens the evidence that the universe contains a component of dark matter. But we still do not know what that component is made of.

Future observations of the cosmic microwave background and larger galaxy surveys will allow physicists and astronomers to test gravity even more precisely.

Gallardo concluded:

With so many unanswered questions, gravity remains one of the most fascinating areas of research. It’s a naturally attractive field.

Bottom line: Newton and Einstein’s laws of gravity hold true across the largest structures in the universe. This new evidence strengthens the case for dark matter.

Source: Test of the Gravitational Force Law on Cosmological Scales Using the Kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect

Via University of Pennsylvania

The post Do Newton and Einstein’s laws of gravity hold across the cosmos? first appeared on EarthSky.

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Hooray! It’s meteor time! That’s right, the Lyrid meteor shower rambles across for a few weeks around April 22.

When is the next meteor shower? Click here for EarthSky’s meteor shower guide

So, how can you optimize your chances of seeing a great meteor display? Follow the tips below.

1. Know the peak time

Generally, meteor showers happen over many days as Earth encounters a wide stream of icy particles in space. These particles are debris left behind by a comet. So the peak is a point in time when Earth is expected to encounter the greatest number of comet particles. To find the peak dates of meteor showers, check EarthSky’s meteor guide.

And here’s the catch … the peak of the shower comes at the same time for all of us on Earth. Meanwhile, our clocks are saying different times. You’ll often need to adjust from UTC to your local time.

However, the predictions are not always right on the money. And remember … it’s possible to see nice meteor displays in the hours – even days – before or after the predicted peak.

Also, keep in mind that meteor showers are part of nature. So naturally, they often defy prediction.

2. Location, location, location

We can’t say this strongly enough. It’s important to have a dark place to observe in the country. Visit EarthSky’s Best Places to Stargaze.

And … you need a wide-open view of the sky. A farmer’s field? Maybe a stretch of country road? Or a campsite with a clear view in one or more directions? That’s because an open sky will increase your chances of seeing some meteors.

3. Oh no! The moon is out

During a meteor shower, a bright moon is not your friend. In fact, nothing dampens the display of a meteor shower more effectively than a bright moon.

If the moon is out, look at areas of the sky away from the moon. Anything in the moon’s vicinity – including meteors – will likely be washed out by its bright light. And, another tip for watching in moonlight: place some object between yourself and the moon. Observing from the shadow of a barn, or vehicle, even a tree, can help you see more meteors. Basically, place yourself somewhere in the moon’s shadow.

4. Know the expected rate

Here, we touch on a topic that sometimes leads to some disappointment, especially among novice meteor-watchers: the rate.

Tables of meteor showers almost always list what is known as the zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) for each shower.

So the ZHR is the number of meteors you’ll see if you’re watching in a very dark sky, with the radiant overhead, when the shower is at its peak. In other words, the ZHR represents the number of meteors you might see per hour given the very best observing conditions during the shower’s maximum.

If the peak occurs when it’s still daylight at your location, if most of the meteors are predominantly faint, if a bright moon is out or if you’re located in a light-polluted area, the total number of meteors you see will be considerably reduced.

5. Don’t worry too much about radiant points

You don’t need to stare all night in a single direction – or even locate the radiant point – to have fun watching the shower. The meteors will appear all over the sky.

But … although you can see meteors shoot up from the horizon before a shower’s radiant rises, you’ll see more meteors after it rises. And you’ll see the most when the radiant is highest in the sky. So, find out the radiant point’s rising time. Then you can pinpoint the best time of night to watch the shower.

And … the radiant point is interesting. If you track meteors backward on the sky’s dome, you’ll find them streaming from their radiant point, a single point within a given constellation. Hence the meteor shower’s name.

6. Watch for an hour or more

Meteor showers will be better if you let your eyes adapt to the dark. That can take as long as 20 minutes. Plus, the meteors tend to come in spurts, followed by lulls. So, be patient! You’ll see some.

7. Notice the meteors’ speeds and colors

The Leonids are the swiftest meteors and the Taurids are the slowest meteors. The nice thing about a slow or medium speed meteor shower – such as the Lyrids – is if you see one and yell “meteor,” other people can catch it as well.

In fact, of the upcoming meteor showers … the Lyrids and the Delta Aquariids are medium speed showers. The Eta Aquariids and Perseids are swift meteors.

Plus, the April Lyrids, the December Geminids, and the August Perseids, can be colorful.

8. Watch for meteor trains

A meteor train is a persistent glow in the air left by some meteors after they have faded from view. Trains are from luminous ionized matter left in the wake of this incoming space debris. Some of the bright Lyrid meteors leave a persistent train. So you you might be lucky and see one.

9. Bring a blanket, a buddy, a hot drink and a lawn chair

A reclining lawn chair helps you lie back in comfort for an hour or more of meteor-watching.

If several of you are watching, take different parts of the sky. If you see one, shout “Meteor!” Dress warmly; the nights can be cool or cold, even during the summer months. You’ll probably appreciate that blanket and warm drink in the wee hours of the morning. Also, leave your laptops and tablets home; even using the nighttime dark mode will ruin your night vision. And this will be tough on some people: leave your cell phone in your pocket or the car. It can also ruin your night vision.

10. Enjoy nature

Relax and enjoy the night sky. Not every meteor shower is a winner. Sometimes, you may come away from a shower seeing only one meteor. But if that one meteor is bright, and takes a slow path across a starry night sky … it’ll be worth it.

To be successful at observing any meteor shower, you need to get into a kind of zen state, waiting and expecting the meteors to come to you, if you place yourself in a good position (country location, wide open sky) to see them.

Or forget the zen state, and let yourself be guided by this old meteor watcher’s motto:

You might see a lot or you might not see many, but if you stay in the house, you won’t see any.

Photos of meteors from EarthSky’s community

Bottom line: Meteor showers are unpredictable but always a fun and relaxing time. Optimize your viewing with these tips.

Post your own photos at EarthSky Community Photos

When is the next meteor shower? Click here for EarthSky’s meteor shower guide

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• When a star strays too close to a supermassive black hole, it gets torn apart. The debris accumulates to produce a brilliant flare called a tidal disruption event, or TDE.
• New high-resolution simulations confirm the stellar debris forms a narrow stream that encircles the black hole and collides with itself. Earlier models couldn’t capture this detail.
• Black hole spin may deflect the debris stream off course, offering a potential reason why no two TDEs look alike.

Syracuse University published this original story on April 9, 2026. Edits by EarthSky.

Simulating how black holes light up the dark

Supermassive black holes are among the most enigmatic objects in the universe. They typically weigh millions or even billions of times the mass of the sun. And they sit at the centers of most large galaxies. For example, at the heart of the Milky Way lies Sagittarius A*, our galaxy’s supermassive black hole. It has the mass of about 4 million suns. But these black holes do not emit light, so astronomers can only detect them indirectly through their effects on nearby stars and gas.

The Astrophysical Journal Letters published a new study on March 9, 2026. In it, co-author Eric Coughlin, assistant professor of physics in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and colleagues clarify what happens when a star wanders too close to one of these black holes and is torn apart.

When black holes capture stars

A star ingested by a supermassive black hole does not simply vanish in a single gulp. Instead, the black hole’s gravity tears the star into a long, thin debris stream. Over time, the debris stream wraps around the black hole. This is an effect that ultimately arises from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Gravity according to Newton does not produce this effect.

When parts of that circling stream crash into one another, they release a burst of energy and subsequently accrete, or slowly spiral into, the black hole. Both of these effects – the initial collision and the subsequent accretion – produce so much radiation that they briefly outshine the entire galaxy in which they occur.

Astronomers refer to these events as tidal disruption events, or TDEs. TDEs offer one of the few ways to study supermassive black holes like Sagittarius A* in other galaxies. Coughlin said:

We can study tidal disruption events to learn more about black holes hidden from view.

For years, TDEs have fascinated researchers because each of these massive flares is like a fingerprint. By measuring how a flare rises, peaks and fades, scientists can infer properties of the black hole that produced it. These properties include its mass and perhaps its spin. But the details of how these flares form have remained difficult to pin down, in part because the process is hard to simulate accurately.

Seeing the debris clearly

That is where new high-resolution simulations are changing the picture. Recent work by a team led by Lucio Mayer at the University of Zurich uses a methodology known as smoothed particle hydrodynamics. This methodology decomposes a star into particles that interact with one another hydrodynamically. These are the same fundamental equations that govern the flow of water through a pipe.

Their study employed tens of billions of particles to model the disrupted star’s gas in unprecedented detail. The result is a superior view of what happens after a star gets ripped apart. Rather than dispersing chaotically, the debris forms a narrow, coherent stream that follows a predictable path around the black hole before crashing into itself.

Their finding supports a long-standing theoretical prediction. Earlier simulations often mischaracterized the stream’s structure because they lacked the resolution to capture such fine detail. This lead to a “spraying” of the stellar debris and unexpectedly high levels of fluid-dynamical dissipation. With far more particles and through the exploitation of graphics processing units on powerful supercomputers, the shape of the debris becomes much easier to see.

But the new models also reveal something else.

The spin factor

Three properties of a supermassive black hole and the stellar orbit can influence the outcome of a given TDE: the black hole’s mass, how fast it spins, and the orientation of that spin relative to the orbital plane of the incoming debris. Together, they may determine when the flare begins, how bright it becomes and how long it lasts.

If the black hole is rotating, it induces additional variation in the spacetime around it compared to a non-spinning black hole. And that produces an effect known as nodal precession. This effect may shift the debris stream out of its original plane. So the stream may miss itself after one orbit, then miss again before finally colliding. In some cases, the flare may be delayed by several loops around the black hole.

No two are alike

That complication may help explain one of the enduring puzzles of TDE research. No two events look exactly alike. Some rise quickly and fade fast. Others unfold more slowly. Some are brighter, some dimmer. Some behave in ways that are still hard to classify. While differences in the mass of the black hole could account for some of these differences, these new simulations suggest that black hole spin may be one of the key reasons for that diversity.

TDEs turn invisible objects into readable signals. A star gets shredded, debris collides, light emerges and a previously hidden black hole is revealed. With better simulations and more powerful telescopes, astronomers are learning how to read those signals more clearly than ever before.

Bottom line: When black holes tear apart stars, the wreckage heats up, creating brilliant flares. And now new simulations are showing these flares with more detail than ever before.

Source: Tidal Disruption Events with SPH-EXA: Resolving the Return of the Stream

Via Syracuse University

Read more: Black hole belches radiation long after eating a star

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Will a super El Niño emerge this year?

Computer models have been indicating that a super El Niño could arrive this summer. NOAA says there’s currently a 1-in-4 chance. So it’s not a slam dunk. But, in this Northern Hemisphere spring, conditions are pointing that way. And, if it happens, we might see record high temperatures in 2026 and into 2027. 

Here’s why scientists think so. Some early-season cyclones in the western Pacific have helped push warm waters to the east. Now the subsurface equatorial Pacific is warmer than average for April. And scientists are reporting only a “paper-thin layer” of cooler-than-average waters at the surface. The April outlook from one of the major weather models – the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts – had every one of its more than 20 models predicting a strong El Niño by mid-June already. Yale’s ClimateConnections.org commented:

These are portentous signs of what may become a truly powerful El Niño event by later this year.

El Niño events often develop in spring and summer, with conditions peaking between November and January. In fact, El Niño got its name (Little Boy) because it generally peaks around Christmas.

So what is a super El Niño and what will it mean for our weather?

What is a super El Niño?

Let’s start with what a typical El Niño is. There are three types of conditions that can guide global weather: El Niño, La Niña and neutral. These three conditions make up ENSO, or the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. ENSO is a natural climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean that shifts between warm and cool phases. El Niño is the warm phase and La Niña is the cool phase. And these phases influence weather around the world, including rainfall, droughts and storms.

So an average El Niño occurs when warm water pools up in the eastern Pacific Ocean, around the equator. Once the temperatures reach 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 F) warmer than normal in the sea surface, an El Niño has formed. El Niño conditions can last for up to a year.

A super El Niño is a stronger event. Meteorologists often call it a super El Niño when the sea surface temperature anomalies peak at about 2.0° C (3.6 F) above normal. And currently, some models are calling for the coming El Niño to exceed 2.5° C (4.5 F) above the seasonal average by October.

You can follow along with NOAA’s El Niño watch here. The next update will be on May 16. As of April 9, 2026, NOAA said:

The possible outcomes range from ENSO-neutral to a very strong El Niño during the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter. The possibility of a very strong El Niño largely depends on the continuation of westerly wind anomalies across the equatorial Pacific throughout the Northern Hemisphere summer months, which is not assured.

Higher temperatures with El Niño

An El Niño usually brings higher global temperatures. The excess heat in the Pacific Ocean eventually enters the atmosphere. This causes warmer global temperatures. However, the rise in temperatures often has a lag time of a few months.

Some forecasters have already said that if a strong El Niño emerges, 2027 could become one of the hottest years on record. Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini told PBS:

A strong El Niño could plausibly push global temperatures to new record levels in late 2026 and into 2027.

This comes on the heels of the hottest March on record for the contiguous United States. NOAA said:

The contiguous U.S. average temperature in March was 50.85° F (10.4 C), 9.35° F (5.19 C) above the 20th-century average, marking the first time any month’s average has exceeded 9° F (5 C) above that baseline.

Other impacts from El Niño

In the summer, El Niño can dampen hurricane formation in the Atlantic. But it’s in winter that we feel El Niño the strongest. Often the jet stream will drop south, steering storms into California and Arizona and bringing much-needed rain. If the jet stream drops, then the southern and eastern U.S. can expect wetter and cooler weather. Meanwhile, drier weather could prevail in the northern U.S. and Great Lakes region.

Across the globe, El Niño brings drought conditions to places such as Australia, India and central Africa. And it can bring heavy rains to southern South America and eastern Africa.

Bottom line: Signs are trending toward a super El Niño to develop this summer. If it happens, we might see record high temperatures in 2026 and into 2027.

Via NOAA

Via Yale Climate Connections

The post Will a super El Niño in 2026 bring record high temps? first appeared on EarthSky.

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• The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has created one of the most extensive surveys of the cosmos ever conducted. The five-year survey is now complete.
• DESI has mapped more than 47 million galaxies and quasars. This is the largest high-resolution 3D map of our universe to date.
• DESI will continue observations into 2028 and further expand the map. The observations will help astronomers understand how dark energy works in the universe.

NOIRLab published this original story on April 15, 2026. Edits by EarthSky.

DESI’s 3D map of the universe is complete!

On Tuesday night, April 14, 2026, the 5,000 fiber-optic eyes of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) swiveled onto a patch of sky near the Little Dipper. Roughly every 20 minutes, it locked onto distant pinpricks of light, gathering photons that had traveled toward Earth for billions of years. When the sun rose, the instrument had completed a major milestone. It had successfully surveyed all areas in a planned 3D map of the universe.

The five-year survey, finished ahead of schedule and with vastly more data than expected, has produced the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever made. Researchers use that map to explore dark energy, the fundamental ingredient that makes up about 70% of our universe and is driving its accelerating expansion.

The mission of DESI

DESI’s quest to understand dark energy is a global endeavor. The international experiment brings together the expertise of more than 900 researchers (including 300 Ph.D. students) from over 70 institutions. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) manages this project. And the instrument was constructed and is operated with funding from the DOE Office of Science. DESI is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona, a program of NSF NOIRLab.

By comparing how galaxies clustered in the past with their distribution today, researchers can trace dark energy’s influence over 11 billion years of cosmic history. Surprising results using DESI’s first three years of data hinted that dark energy, once thought to be a cosmological constant, might be evolving over time.

With the full set of five years of data, researchers will have significantly more information to test whether that hint disappears or grows. If confirmed, it would mark a major shift in how we think about our universe and its potential fate, which hinges on the balance between matter and dark energy.

A successful universe-mapping project

Stephanie Juneau, associate astronomer and NSF NOIRLab representative for DESI, said:

It’s impossible to capture everything that went into making DESI such a successful experiment. From instrument builders and software engineers to technicians, observatory staff, and scientists – including many early-career researchers – it truly took a village. Ultimately, we are doing this for all humanity, to better understand our universe and its eventual fate. After finding hints that dark energy might deviate from a constant, potentially altering that fate, this moment feels like sitting on the edge of my seat as we analyze the new map to see whether those hints will be confirmed. I’m also very intrigued by the many other discoveries that await in this new dataset.

Kathy Turner, Program Manager for the Cosmic Frontier in the Office of High Energy Physics at the Department of Energy, said:

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has truly exceeded all expectations, delivering an unprecedented 3D map of the universe that will revolutionize our understanding of dark energy. From its inception, we envisioned a project that would push the boundaries of cosmology, and to see it come to such a spectacularly successful completion for its initial survey, ahead of schedule and with such rich data, is incredibly rewarding. The dedication and ingenuity of the entire DESI collaboration have made this world-leading science a reality, and I am immensely proud of the groundbreaking results we are already seeing and the discoveries yet to come as we continue to explore the mysteries of our cosmos.

What’s next for DESI?

DESI has now measured cosmological data for six times as many galaxies and quasars as all previous measurements combined. The collaboration will immediately begin processing the completed dataset, with the first dark energy results from the full five-year survey expected in 2027. In the meantime, DESI collaborators continue to analyze the survey’s first three years of data, refining dark energy measurements and producing additional results on the structure and evolution of the universe, with several papers planned later this year.

Michael Levi, DESI director and a scientist at Berkeley Lab, said:

We’re going to celebrate completion of the original survey and then get started on the work of churning through the data, because we’re all curious about what new surprises are waiting for us.

The plan was to capture light from 34 million galaxies and quasars (extremely distant yet bright objects with black holes at their cores) over the five-year sky survey. DESI instead observed more than 47 million galaxies and quasars, as well as 20 million stars.

Expanding the 3D map of the universe

DESI will continue observations through 2028 and grow its map by about 20%, from 14,000 square degrees to 17,000 square degrees. (For comparison, the moon covers approximately 0.2 square degrees, and the full sky has over 41,000 square degrees). The extended map will cover parts of the sky that are more challenging to observe. These are areas that are closer to the plane of the Milky Way, where bright nearby stars can make it harder to see more distant objects. It also includes areas farther to the south, where the telescope must account for peering through more of Earth’s atmosphere.

The experiment will also revisit the existing area of the map to collect data from a new set of galaxies: more distant, fainter luminous red galaxies. These will provide an even denser, more detailed map of the regions DESI has already covered, giving researchers a clearer picture of the universe’s history.

Researchers will also study nearby dwarf galaxies and stellar streams, bands of stars torn from smaller galaxies by the Milky Way’s gravity. The hope is to better understand dark matter, the invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected.

Bottom line: Astronomers have completed the largest, most detailed 3D map of the universe ever made. It charts tens of millions of galaxies and quasars to help reveal how dark energy shapes the cosmos.

Via NOIRLab

The post DESI’s 3D map of the universe is complete! first appeared on EarthSky.

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Alpha Centauri is often said to be the closest star to our sun. It’s true that when you look at this star – the 3rd-brightest star in our night sky – you can think of it as the closest star.

But, really, it’s the closest star system to our sun. The single star we see as Alpha Centauri becomes two stars through a telescope. This pair is just 4.37 light-years away from us. A third star in the system, Proxima Centauri, orbits around the two larger stars.

And, at 4.25 light-years away, Proxima is the closest known star.

The 2 main stars of the Alpha Centauri system

The two sunlike stars that make up Alpha Centauri are Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman. Rigil Kentaurus, also known as Alpha Centauri A, is a yellowish star. It’s slightly more massive than the sun and about 1.5 times brighter. Toliman, or Alpha Centauri B, has an orangeish hue. And it’s a bit less massive and half as bright as the sun. Studies of their mass and spectroscopic features indicate that both these stars are about 5 billion years old. That makes them slightly older than our sun.

Alpha Centauri A and B are gravitationally bound together. They orbit a common center of mass every 79.9 years at a relatively close proximity, varying between 11.2 to 35.6 astronomical units. That is, 11.2 to 35.6 times the distance between the Earth and our sun.

Meet Proxima Centauri

In comparison, Proxima Centauri is a bit of an outlier. And this dim reddish star, weighing in at just 12% of the sun’s mass, is currently about 13,000 astronomical units from Alpha Centauri A and B. Recent analysis of ground- and space-based data, published in 2017, has shown that Proxima is gravitationally bound to its bright companions. It has about a 550,000-year-long orbital period.

Proxima Centauri belongs to a class of low-mass stars with cooler surface temperatures. They are known as red dwarfs. Additionally. it’s also what’s known as a flare star. Flare stars randomly display sudden bursts of brightness due to strong magnetic activity.

The search for planets

So, in the past decade, astronomers have been searching for planets around the Alpha Centauri stars. Of course they are the closest stars to us, so the odds of detecting planets, if any exist, would be higher. So far, three planets have been confirmed orbiting Proxima Centauri, one in 2016 and another in 2020. And in 2022, a smaller planet, only about 25% of Earth’s mass, was found orbiting very close to the star. Then in 2025, the James Webb Telescope announced it found evidence of a gas giant planet around Alpha Centauri A. But so far, it has not been definitively confirmed.

How to see Alpha Centauri

Unluckily for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Alpha Centauri is located too far south on the sky’s dome to see. So most North Americans never see it. The cut-off latitude is about 29 degrees north, and anyone north of that is out of luck. So in the U.S. that latitudinal line passes near Houston and Orlando, but even from the Florida Keys, the star never rises more than a few degrees above the southern horizon. Things are a little better in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, where it can get 10 or 11 degrees high.

But for observers located far enough south in the Northern Hemisphere, Alpha Centauri may be visible at roughly 1 a.m. (local daylight saving time) in early May. That is when the star is highest above the southern horizon. By early July, it reaches its highest point to the south at nightfall. Even so, from these vantage points, there are no good pointer stars to Alpha Centauri. For those south of 29 degrees north latitude, when the bright star Arcturus is high overhead, look to the extreme south for a glimpse of Alpha Centauri.

Look for the Southern Cross

Observers in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere can find Alpha Centauri by first identifying the distinctive Southern Cross, also known as Crux. A short line drawn through the crossbar (Delta and Beta Crucis) eastward first comes to Hadar (Beta Centauri), then Alpha Centauri. Meanwhile, in Australia and much of the Southern Hemisphere, Alpha Centauri is circumpolar, meaning that it never sets.

The mythology of Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri has played a prominent role in the mythology of cultures across the Southern Hemisphere. For the Ngarrindjeri indigenous people of South Australia, Alpha and Beta Centauri were two sharks pursuing a stingray represented by stars of the Southern Cross. Some Australian aboriginal cultures also associated stars with family relationships and marriage traditions; for instance, two stars of the Southern Cross were through to be the parents of Alpha Centauri.

Astronomy and navigation were vital in the lives of ancient seafaring Polynesians as they sailed between islands in the vast expanse of the South Pacific. These ancient mariners navigated using the stars, with cues from nature such as bird movements, waves, and wind direction. Alpha Centauri and nearby Beta Centauri, known as Kamailehope and Kamailemua, respectively, were important signposts used for orientation in the open ocean.

For ancient Incas, a llama graced the sky, traced out by stars and dark dust lanes in the Milky Way from Scorpius to the Southern Cross, with Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri representing its eyes.

Ancient Egyptians revered Alpha Centauri, and may have built temples aligned to its rising point. In southern China, it was part of a star group known as the South Gate.

How it got its name

Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the constellation Centaurus the Centaur, named after the mythical half human, half horse creature. Also, it represented an uncharacteristically wise centaur, Chiron, that figured in the mythology of Heracles and Jason. Hercules accidentally killed Chiron, who was placed in the sky after death by Zeus. Alpha Centauri marked the right front hoof of the centaur, although little is known of its mythological significance, if any.

Alpha Centauri’s position is RA: 14h 39m 36s, Dec: -60° 50′ 02″

Bottom line: Alpha Centauri is two binary stars that are sunlike stars. Plus, there’s a third star that’s gravitationally bound to them named Proxima Centauri. In fact, it’s the closest star to our sun.

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