Be a sky time traveler
Visit moments in time when looking up made history. Pick one and stand where it happened, under the sky exactly as it was.
Kaifeng, China
Court astronomers of the Song dynasty logged a "guest star" near the horns of the Bull, bright enough to see in daylight for 23 days. It was a star blowing itself apart. What's left of it is the Crab Nebula, still expanding 6,500 light years away.
In the sky Before dawn in the east, near the tip of Taurus's southern horn.
See the sky that dayHastings, England
Halley's Comet blazed over England in the spring of 1066, and everyone took it as an omen. By October, England had a new king. The Bayeux Tapestry stitched the comet in, with a crowd pointing up: "These men marvel at the star."
In the sky In the evening sky for about a week, its tail sweeping away from the Sun.
See the sky that daySt. Ann's Bay, Jamaica
Stranded on Jamaica and running out of goodwill, Columbus checked his almanac and warned the Taíno that God would take away the Moon. That evening it rose already dimmed and turning red. The food came back, and so did the Moon.
In the sky The Moon rising in the east at dusk, already inside Earth's shadow.
See the sky that dayPadua, Italy
Pointing his homemade telescope at Jupiter, Galileo saw three little "stars" in a line beside it. Night after night they moved, and one more turned up. They were moons going round another world, and the idea that everything circles the Earth never recovered.
In the sky Jupiter, the brightest point high in the evening sky.
See the sky that dayProhlis, near Dresden
Edmond Halley predicted his comet would come back in 1758. He died 16 years too early to see it. On Christmas night, a German farmer and amateur astronomer named Johann Palitzsch spotted it right on schedule, and a comet got a name for the first time.
In the sky A faint fuzzy patch, found with a small telescope after dark.
See the sky that dayBath, England
William Herschel, a musician with a homemade telescope, noticed a "star" that looked like a little disc and wandered. He thought it was a comet. It was the first planet found since ancient times. He wanted to call it George, after the king. Everyone else went with Uranus.
In the sky Between Taurus and Gemini in the late evening, just at the edge of naked-eye visibility.
See the sky that dayHuntsville, Alabama
Before dawn, the sky over North America filled with tens of thousands of meteors an hour. People woke their neighbors, sure the world was ending. It gave the song "Stars Fell on Alabama" its name, and it was the night astronomers worked out that meteor showers come from one point in the sky.
In the sky Meteors pouring out of Leo, high in the east before dawn.
See the sky that dayRocky Mountains, Colorado
The biggest solar storm on record. Auroras reached Cuba and Hawaii. Gold miners in the Rockies woke around 1 AM and started cooking breakfast, thinking it was dawn. Telegraph lines sparked, and some kept working with the batteries unplugged.
In the sky Red and green curtains over the whole sky, even overhead.
See the sky that dayTunguska, Siberia
A space rock exploded a few miles above the Siberian forest and flattened 80 million trees. Nobody was hurt, because hardly anybody lived there. For nights afterward the sky glowed so brightly that people in London could read a newspaper at midnight.
In the sky A fireball crossing the morning sky, then a flash brighter than the Sun.
See the sky that dayNew York City
Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet, and a rumor spread that its gas would poison everyone. Salesmen sold "comet pills" and gas masks. Rooftop parties went on all night. The air was fine.
In the sky Not much, that night: the comet was passing between Earth and the Sun. A week later it was back in the evening sky with a long tail.
See the sky that dayPríncipe
Arthur Eddington sailed to a tiny island off West Africa to photograph stars beside the eclipsed Sun. Clouds broke just in time. The stars had shifted, bent by the Sun's gravity exactly as Einstein predicted, and Einstein became world famous overnight.
In the sky The Sun blacked out for five minutes, with the Hyades star cluster around it.
See the sky that dayLowell Observatory, Flagstaff
Clyde Tombaugh, 24 and fresh off a Kansas farm, flipped back and forth between two photographs of the same patch of sky and saw one dot jump. It was Pluto. An 11-year-old girl in England suggested the name, and she was paid five pounds for it.
In the sky Gemini in the evening sky, where Pluto was far too faint to see without a big telescope.
See the sky that daySainte-Mère-Église, Normandy
The invasion of Normandy needed a late-rising Moon to light the paratroopers' drops, and a low tide at dawn for the landings. Only a few days a month would do. The weather nearly ruled out June 6, but a gap in the storm let it go ahead.
In the sky A nearly full Moon low in the southeast, lighting the fields for the paratroopers.
See the sky that dayBaikonur (Moscow time, as announced)
The first artificial satellite was a polished ball the size of a beach ball that beeped on the radio. Ham operators everywhere tuned in. The rocket's big core stage, tumbling in orbit beside it, was what people actually saw crossing the sky at dusk.
In the sky The R-7 rocket climbing away into the night, northeast.
See the sky that dayBaikonur (Moscow time, as announced)
Yuri Gagarin shouted "Poyekhali!" ("Let's go!") and became the first person in space. He went once around the world in 108 minutes and parachuted into a field, where a farmer and her granddaughter were the first to meet him.
In the sky Vostok 1 on its R-7, climbing into the morning sky toward the northeast.
See the sky that dayPerth, Australia
As John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, the people of Perth switched on every light they had, porch lights and car headlights included. Glenn saw them from orbit and radioed a thank-you. Perth has been "the City of Light" ever since.
In the sky Friendship 7 passing over late at night, a moving point of light.
See the sky that dayHouston, Texas
Apollo 8 was the first crew to fly around the Moon. That day they took the Earthrise photo, and that night they read from Genesis to the biggest TV audience ever. Look at the young crescent Moon setting in the west: three people were circling it.
In the sky A thin crescent Moon low in the southwest after sunset.
See the sky that dayTitusville, Florida
About a million people lined the roads and beaches around Cape Canaveral to watch the Saturn V go. The ground shook miles away. Four days later, two of the three men aboard would be walking on the Moon.
In the sky The Saturn V climbing from Pad 39A, east across the water, mid-morning.
See the sky that dayHouston, Texas
At 9:56 PM in Houston, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon while 600 million people watched on TV. Plenty of them went outside afterward and just looked at it. It was up in the southwest, a little under half lit.
In the sky A waxing Moon, nearly half lit, in the southwest, with two people on it.
See the sky that dayAtar, Mauritania
On the ground, this was one of the longest eclipses of the century: seven minutes. Astronomers did better. They took a Concorde up and raced the Moon's shadow across Africa at twice the speed of sound, staying in totality for 74 minutes.
In the sky The Sun blacked out high in the sky over the Sahara.
See the sky that dayBig Ear, Delaware, Ohio
A radio telescope in Ohio caught a strong, narrow signal from deep space that lasted 72 seconds. Astronomer Jerry Ehman circled it on the printout and wrote "Wow!" Nobody has heard it again, and nobody has explained it.
In the sky Toward Sagittarius, low in the south in the late evening.
See the sky that dayGoldendale, Washington
A total eclipse crossed the Pacific Northwest on a winter morning. The TV news signed off reminding everyone the next one in the US would be in 2017. A lot of kids who watched in 1979 waited 38 years and finally saw the next one as grown-ups.
In the sky The Sun eclipsed low in the southeast, early in the morning.
See the sky that dayTitusville, Florida
Twenty years to the day after Gagarin, Columbia lifted off with John Young and Bob Crippen aboard. It was the first time a new spacecraft carried people on its very first flight. Two days later they landed it like a plane in the California desert.
In the sky Columbia climbing from Pad 39A, heading east-northeast over the ocean.
See the sky that dayLas Campanas, Chile
Ian Shelton developed a photograph of a nearby galaxy and saw a new star that shouldn't be there. He walked outside, looked up, and there it was, with his own eyes. It was the first supernova visible without a telescope since 1604.
In the sky In the Large Magellanic Cloud, a hazy patch high in the southern sky.
See the sky that dayPalomar Observatory, California
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had been torn into a string of pieces, and over six days they slammed into Jupiter one by one. The dark scars, some bigger than Earth, showed up in backyard telescopes. It was found from right here.
In the sky Jupiter, bright in the southwest after sunset.
See the sky that dayCloudcroft, New Mexico
Found by Alan Hale from his driveway here, Hale-Bopp stayed visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months. It showed up even from city streets, with two tails: a white one of dust and a blue one of gas. This was its closest night to Earth.
In the sky Low in the northwest after dark, with its tails pointing up and away.
See the sky that dayJoshua Tree, California
Astronomers predicted it this time, and they were right. Before dawn, thousands of meteors an hour streaked over North America. In the desert, people saw one every couple of seconds at the peak, with bright fireballs leaving glowing trails.
In the sky Meteors streaming from Leo, high in the east before dawn.
See the sky that dayLondon, England
For six hours, Venus slid across the face of the Sun as a small black dot. Nobody alive had seen it before: the last one was in 1882. Explorers in the 1700s sailed around the world to time these to work out the size of the solar system.
In the sky The Sun, through a proper solar filter, with a black dot moving across it.
See the sky that dayPasadena, California
Curiosity was lowered onto Mars by a rocket-powered sky crane. Mission control at JPL could only wait the 14 minutes it took for word to arrive. When it did, the room erupted. Mars itself was right there, low in the west-southwest after sunset.
In the sky Mars, a reddish point low in the west-southwest at dusk.
See the sky that dayCarbondale, Illinois
The first total eclipse to cross the whole country in 99 years. Highways jammed and eclipse glasses sold out. Carbondale had the longest totality on the path, and it would get another eclipse just seven years later.
In the sky The Sun blacked out high in the south, with Venus and Jupiter popping out.
See the sky that dayTitusville, Florida
The most powerful rocket in years flew for the first time, carrying a red Tesla Roadster with a dummy called Starman at the wheel. Then the two side boosters came back and landed side by side, at the same moment, with a double sonic boom.
In the sky Falcon Heavy climbing from Pad 39A in the afternoon, east over the ocean.
See the sky that dayNew York City
On the winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn came closer together in our sky than at any time since 1623. They looked almost like one double star. People called it the Christmas Star, and through a small telescope you could see both planets, and their moons, in one view.
In the sky Low in the southwest after sunset: two bright points almost touching.
See the sky that dayTitusville, Florida
NASA's giant SLS rocket launched in the middle of the night to send an uncrewed Orion around the Moon. It turned night into day across the Space Coast, and the roar reached people miles away a minute after the light did.
In the sky SLS climbing from Pad 39B before 2 AM, east over the water.
See the sky that dayDallas, Texas
Mexico to Maine, tens of millions of people under the path. In Dallas, the clouds parted just in time and the crowds cheered as day went dark for nearly four minutes, with pink flames showing at the edge of the Sun.
In the sky The Sun blacked out high in the south, Venus and Jupiter shining beside it.
See the sky that dayOrlando, Florida
The strongest solar storm in 20 years pushed the northern lights as far south as Florida. Phones on a long exposure caught pink and purple skies over Orlando, even where the naked eye saw only a glow. Floridians had a name for it: Florida Borealis.
In the sky A pink glow low in the north, brighter in the camera than to the eye.
See the sky that day