Jupiter ends its retrograde motion on March 11! 🌟
For the past few months, Jupiter has appeared to move backward against the background stars — a phenomenon called retrograde motion. But on March 11, the giant planet will switch direction and resume its usual eastward (direct) motion in the sky. Next time the planet will go retrograde only on December 13, 2026.
Nothing dramatic will suddenly happen to Jupiter itself — this change is just an effect of Earth overtaking the planet in our orbit, creating a temporary perspective trick.
Still, it’s a great reminder to look up! Jupiter is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, shining like a steady star and easily visible even from cities. With binoculars, you can spot its four largest moons, and a small telescope can reveal its cloud bands.
Have you seen Jupiter recently? 🔭✨
#jupiter #retrograde #astronomy #space #starwalk
Ever feel like Earth’s days just fly by? 🌍✈️ See how fast other planets spin around! Earth gives us 24-hour days, but what if we lived on Jupiter with super short days, or Venus where days last forever? 🕰️✨
Check out how long a day is on different planets:
🚀Jupiter: 9 hours, 55 minutes
🏎️ Saturn: 10 hours, 33 minutes
⏲️ Neptune: 16 hours
💨 Uranus: 17 hours, 14 minutes
🏡 Earth: 23 hours, 56 minutes
⏳ Mars: 24 hours, 36 minutes
🐌 Mercury: 58 EARTH days, 16 hours
🌀Venus: 243 243 EARTH days, 26 minutes
Would you like days to be longer or shorter? Tell us in the comments! ⏳👇
##solarsystem #Venus #Mars #Jupiter #starwalk
3 space facts as cat memes 😺
Fact 1: all the Solar System planets spin counterclockwise except for Venus and Uranus 🪐 Uranus also spins sideways!
Fact 2: for now, Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object in space 🛰️ Together with Voyager 2, they are now exploring the Heliosheath.
Fact 3: in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* 🌌
#catmeme #astronomy #blackholes #milkywaygalaxy #starwalk
On the evenings of May 18–20, don’t miss a beautiful celestial meetup 🌙✨
A thin crescent Moon will pass by the two brightest planets — Venus and Jupiter — low above the western horizon shortly after sunset. All three will be easy to spot, even from the city. And as a bonus, Castor and Pollux will shine nearby, making the view even prettier ⭐️
Just keep in mind: the Moon just passed its new phase, so it won’t stay visible for long after sunset. To find the best viewing time for your location, use Star Walk 2 — link in bio 📲
#Moon #Venus #Jupiter #NightSky #Stargazing #StarWalk
Earth with Saturn’s rings 🌍💍
The planet suddenly looks way less important.
Swipe to see how the rings would look from Earth.
#space #astronomy #saturn #earth #starwalk
Ever looked at the Milky Way and realized… you’re looking at home?
That glowing band across the night sky is our galaxy seen from the inside — a vast barred spiral galaxy filled with stars, planets, gas, dust, and dark matter.
A few mind-blowing Milky Way facts:
✦ It contains about 100–400 billion stars
✦ It stretches about 105,700 light-years across
✦ Our Solar System sits in the Orion Arm, about 27,000 light-years from the Galactic Center
✦ At the center lies Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole about 4 million times the mass of the Sun
✦ One orbit around the Milky Way takes the Sun about 225–250 million years
Want to see the brightest part of our galaxy? Look for the Galactic Center during Milky Way season — from March to October in the Northern Hemisphere and from February to October in the Southern Hemisphere.
For the best view: find a dark sky, avoid moonlight, check the weather, and use the Sky Tonight app (the link is in the bio☝️) to locate the Milky Way Center from your exact location.
Clear skies! 🌌
#MilkyWay #NightSky #Stargazing #Astronomy #StarWalk
How You’d Die on Every Planet 🪐💀
Space is beautiful… but most of it is extremely bad at keeping humans alive. Here’s what would happen if you tried to survive on each Solar System planet without serious protection 👇
1. Mercury 🔥❄️☢️
No atmosphere means no air to breathe and almost no protection from the Sun’s radiation. During the day, you’d be roasted by extreme heat; at night, you’d freeze in brutal cold. A very efficient planet for dying in multiple ways.
2. Venus 🔥💀
Venus looks pretty, but it’s basically a planetary pressure cooker. Its thick toxic atmosphere would suffocate you, the crushing pressure would feel like being deep under the ocean, and the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead.
3. Earth 🌦️🥴🚗
The only planet where you can breathe, drink liquid water, and complain about the weather. You’re safe here… relatively. Just watch out for stairs, showers, traffic, suspicious leftovers, and your own life choices.
4. Mars 🥶☢️🏜️
Mars is the “most survivable” after Earth, which is not saying much. Its air is too thin to breathe, the pressure is dangerously low, the cold is deadly, and the surface gets blasted with radiation. Romantic red planet, terrible vacation spot.
5. Jupiter 🌪️⚡🌀
Jupiter has no solid surface to stand on. You’d fall deeper and deeper into its atmosphere while pressure and temperature increased around you. Add violent storms, insane winds, and crushing gravity, and it’s a very dramatic one-way trip.
6. Saturn 💍🌪️🔥
Saturn may have gorgeous rings, but it also has no solid ground. Like Jupiter, it’s a gas giant: you’d sink into layers of atmosphere, get battered by extreme winds, and eventually be destroyed by pressure and heat.
7. Uranus 🧊🌫️🥶
Cold, distant, and deeply unfriendly. Uranus has an icy atmosphere made mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane. You’d have no breathable air, and deeper layers would bring crushing pressure and freezing temperatures.
(Read comments for Neptune 👇️)
#SolarSystem #SpaceFacts #Astronomy #Planets #StarWalk
When the Milky Way and Andromeda finally collide, what should we call the new galaxy? 👀✨
MilkyMeda? AndroWay? Or do you have a better name?
These two giant spiral galaxies are expected to begin a head-on collision in about 4 billion years, and around 6 billion years from now they may merge into one huge elliptical galaxy 🌌
This simulation shows Triangulum surviving the Milky Way-Andromeda merger as a companion galaxy — although other models predict it may later become part of the crash as well.
So, what’s your name for our future galaxy? Drop it in the comments 👇
Credits: Frank Summers (STScI), Gurtina Besla (Columbia University), and Roeland van der Marel (STScI)
#MilkyWay #Andromeda #Space #Astronomy #StarWalk
What is space, really? 🌌
It’s not a perfect emptiness — it’s a cosmic in-between.
Space has no air and is almost a vacuum, but it still holds radiation, particles, gas, dust, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays. It’s the dark background where planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, black holes, and comets exist.
And here’s the wild part: all the visible stuff in the Universe — every star, planet, galaxy, and glowing nebula — makes up less than 5% of what’s out there. 🤯 The rest is dark matter and dark energy, which scientists still don’t fully understand.
Space also changes depending on where you are: the space between planets, between stars, and between galaxies are all extremely thin, but they aren’t exactly the same. 🚀
So when we look up at the night sky, we’re not just seeing “nothing.” We’re looking into a vast, almost empty, constantly evolving Universe full of objects, forces, and unanswered questions. 🔭
What space mystery would you most like scientists to solve first?
#space #astronomy #science #starwalk #blackhole
☀️ One Sun. Two planets.
On Earth, it appears red at sunset — through thick air and oceans.
On Mars, it appears blue — through thin dust and silence.
But it's the same Sun. Our Sun. 🌍❤️🔴
One day, humanity will live on both worlds. Not because one is better — but because people are different.
Some will stay on Earth 🌿🌊 — for the forests, the rain, the green hills.
Others will go to Mars 🏜️🌌 — for the canyons, the stillness, the darker sky.
Two homes. One light. And someday — flights between them, just to visit friends who chose the other horizon.
Same Sun. Two chances.
#Sun #Mars #Earth #BlueSunrise #StarWalk
The world’s best Milky Way photos are in 🌌
These 5 shots are part of the 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year, an annual astrophotography competition celebrating some of the most stunning images of our galaxy captured around the world. This year’s selection features 25 photographs taken under some of the darkest and most breathtaking skies on Earth.
But this collection is about more than beautiful pictures. It’s about the planning, patience, travel, and skill it takes to capture the Milky Way at just the right moment — over deserts, mountains, coastlines, islands, and other remote places where the night still shines brightly.
It’s also a reminder that truly dark skies are becoming harder to find. As light pollution grows, photos like these show not only what is still out there, but also what we risk losing.
Here are 5 stunning images from this year’s selection:
1️⃣ The Milky Way Over a Field of Lupines — Alvin Wu
2️⃣ Geminid Symphony Over La Palma’s Guardian of the Sky — Uroš Fink
3️⃣ Galactic Gandalf — Evan McKay
4️⃣ Botswana Baobabs by Night — Stefano Pellegrini
5️⃣ Salto del Agrio — Alejandra Heis
Which one is your favorite? 👇
You can find more on the Capture the Atlas website.
#milkyway #astronomy #galaxy #milkyway_nightscapes #starwalk
From May 13 to 15, enjoy a lovely pre-dawn lineup of the Moon and planets 🌙✨
A thin crescent Moon will appear near Saturn, Mars, and Neptune in the early morning sky. Look low above the eastern horizon before sunrise.
🔭 Neptune will be the tricky one — at mag 7.9, you’ll need a small telescope to spot it.
👀 Saturn will be much easier to see with the naked eye, shining at mag 0.9.
❤️ Mars will also be nearby, visible to the naked eye.
A nice little morning lineup for early risers 🌌
#Moon #Saturn #Mars #Astronomy #StarWalk
