Category: 7. Science

A rare Martian meteorite and a juvenile dinosaur skeleton are among the star attractions at Sotheby’s highly anticipated Geek Week 2025 auction in New York. This extraordinary event features 122 exclusive items from natural history, spanning outer space to prehistoric Earth. The Martian meteorite, weighing 54 pounds (25 kg), is the largest of its kind ever discovered on Earth and is estimated to fetch up to $4 million. Meanwhile, the nearly complete Ceratosaurus skeleton—over 6 feet tall—is expected to sell for as much as $6 million. Both items represent monumental finds in planetary science and paleontology, making them irresistible to collectors, researchers, and science enthusiasts.

Largest piece of Mars rock ever found heads to auction in New York

Sotheby’s will auction the Martian meteorite known as NWA 16788, a 54-pound extraterrestrial rock that is 70% larger than any previously discovered Martian sample on Earth. Valued between $2 million and $4 million, the meteorite could become a prized possession in the world of scientific collectibles. A 54.388-pound (24.67 kg) Martian meteorite—believed to be the largest known fragment of Mars on Earth iis on display at Sotheby’s in New York ahead of its auction on July 16, 2025, as part of the Geek Week event. The rare specimen is estimated to fetch between $2 million and $4 million.

How did the largest Martian rock arrive on Earth?

According to Sotheby’s, the meteorite originated from Mars after a powerful asteroid impact ejected it into space. The rock then traveled roughly 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) before crash-landing in the Sahara Desert. It was recovered by a meteorite hunter in Niger in November 2023. Measuring approximately 15 x 11 x 6 inches, it accounts for nearly 7% of all Martian material currently on Earth.To confirm its authenticity, scientists extracted a small portion of the rock for laboratory analysis. The results revealed that it is an olivine-microgabbroic shergottite, a type of Martian volcanic rock that cools slowly. The meteorite contains minerals such as pyroxene and olivine and exhibits surface melting patterns typical of fiery entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Its chemical fingerprint matched that of Martian meteorites first identified by NASA’s Viking missions in 1976.

Dinosaur skeleton from the Jurassic period also in auction

Another highlight of Geek Week 2025 is the auction of a juvenile Ceratosaurus skeleton, standing over 6 feet tall and stretching nearly 11 feet in length. Discovered in 1996 near Laramie, Wyoming, at Bone Cabin Quarry, the specimen was mounted using 140 fossilized bones and sculpted reconstructions. Its estimated value ranges from $4 million to $6 million. The Ceratosaurus was a bipedal predator from the Jurassic era, similar in appearance to the Tyrannosaurus rex but notably smaller. Its distinct features include short arms, sharp teeth, and a prominent nasal horn.

Both the meteorite and dinosaur fossil are part of a broader 122-lot auction that includes rare meteorites, fossils, and gem-quality minerals. The Martian rock was previously on display at the Italian Space Agency in Rome, while the dinosaur skeleton was prepared by Fossilogic, a Utah-based fossil restoration firm. Geek Week 2025 offers a unique opportunity for collectors, institutions, and enthusiasts to own a piece of planetary and prehistoric history.

Largest Martian rock in auction in New York FAQs

What is the Martian meteorite being auctioned called?It is known as NWA 16788, the largest known Martian meteorite on Earth.How much does the meteorite weigh?The meteorite weighs 54.388 pounds (24.67 kilograms).What is the estimated auction price?It is expected to sell for $2 million to $4 million.Where and when is the auction taking place?The auction will be held at Sotheby’s in New York on July 16, 2025, during Geek Week.How was its Martian origin confirmed?Scientists analyzed its chemical composition, which matches rocks identified during NASA’s Viking mission on Mars.Also Read | Shubhanshu Shukla to return Earth after historic ISS mission; know what he achieved through space experiments

July 14 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1789, French peasants stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, beginning the French Revolution. The event is commemorated as “Bastille Day,” a national holiday in France.

In 1793, Jean Paul Marat, one of the most outspoken leaders of the French Revolution, was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a Royalist sympathizer. The murder was immortalized in a painting by Jacques-Louis David.

In 1881, outlaw Billy the Kid was shot to death at a ranch in New Mexico.

In 1914, Robert Goddard, father of the space age, was granted the first patent for a liquid-fueled rocket design. His first rocket soared for about 2 seconds, flew as fast as 60 mph and landed 174 feet from the lift-off pad.

In 1933, all political parties except the Nazis were officially suppressed in Germany.

In 1966, eight student nurses were found killed in Chicago. Drifter Richard Speck, later convicted of the slayings, died in prison in 1991.

In 1968, future Baseball Hall of Fame slugger Hank Aaron became the eighth person to hit 500 home runs for the Atlanta Braves in a win over the San Francisco Giants.

In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country would suspend its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, a Cold War agreement that limited deployment of heavy weaponry.

In 2009, within months after repaying bailout money supplied by the U.S. government, New York banking giant Goldman Sachs reported a profit of $3.44 billion for the first quarter of the year. JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup also reported big profits.

In 2014, the Church of England’s governing body voted to allow women to become bishops for first time in the church’s history.

In 2015, the New Horizons space probe came within 7,800 miles of Pluto, providing NASA scientists with the clearest photographs and most detailed measurements they’ve ever seen of the dwarf planet.

In 2016, 86 people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, were killed when a truck drove into a crowd. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

In 2019, Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer to win his fifth Wimbledon title in a marathon five-set match that lasted nearly 5 hours.

In the 1940s, physicist Richard Feynman first proposed a way to represent the various interactions that take place between electrons, photons, and other fundamental particles using 2D drawings that involve straight and wavy lines intersecting at vertices. Though they look simple, these Feynman diagrams allow scientists to calculate the probability that a particular collision, or scattering, will take place between particles.

Since particles can interact in many ways, many different diagrams are needed to depict every possible interaction. And each diagram represents a mathematical expression. Therefore, by summing all the possible diagrams, scientists can arrive at quantitative values related to particular interactions and scattering probabilities.

“Summing all Feynman diagrams with quantitative accuracy is a holy grail in theoretical physics,” says Marco Bernardi, professor of applied physics, physics, and materials science at Caltech. “We have attacked the polaron problem by adding up all the diagrams for the so-called electron-phonon interaction, essentially up to an infinite order.”

In a paper published in Nature Physics, the Caltech team uses its new method to precisely compute the strength of electron-phonon interactions and to predict associated effects quantitatively. The lead author of the paper is graduate student Yao Luo, a member of Bernardi’s group.

For some materials, such as simple metals, the electrons moving inside the crystal structure will interact only weakly with its atomic vibrations. For such materials, scientists can use a method called perturbation theory to describe the interactions that occur between electrons and phonons, which can be thought of as “units” of atomic vibration. Perturbation theory is a good approximation in these systems because each successive order or interaction becomes decreasingly important. That means that computing only one or a few Feynman diagrams – a calculation that can be done routinely – is sufficient to obtain accurate electron-phonon interactions in these materials.

Introducing Polarons

But for many other materials, electrons interact much more strongly with the atomic lattice, forming entangled electron-phonon states known as polarons. Polarons are electrons accompanied by the lattice distortion they induce. They form in a wide range of materials including insulators, semiconductors, materials used in electronics or energy devices, as well as many quantum materials. For example, an electron placed in a material with ionic bonds will distort the surrounding lattice and form a localized polaron state, resulting in decreased mobility due to the strong electron-phonon interaction. Scientists can study these polaron states by measuring how conductive the electrons are or how they distort the atomic lattice around them.

Perturbation theory does not work for these materials because each successive order is more important than the last. “It’s basically a nightmare in terms of scaling,” says Bernardi. “If you can calculate the lowest order, it’s very likely that you cannot do the second order, and the third order will just be impossible. The computational cost typically scales prohibitively with interaction order. There are too many diagrams to compute, and the higher-order diagrams are too computationally expensive.”

Summing Feynman Diagrams

Scientists have searched for a way to add up all the Feynman diagrams that describe the many, many ways that the electrons in such a material can interact with atomic vibrations. Thus far such calculations have been dominated by methods where scientists can tune certain parameters to match an experiment. “But when you do that, you don’t know whether you’ve actually understood the mechanism or not,” says Bernardi. Instead, his group focuses on solving problems from “first principles,” meaning beginning with nothing more than the positions of atoms within a material and using the equations of quantum mechanics.

When thinking about the scope of this problem, Luo says to imagine trying to predict how the stock market might behave tomorrow. To attempt this, one would need to consider every interaction between every trader over some period to get precise predictions of the market’s dynamics. Luo wants to understand all the interactions between electrons and phonons in a material where the phonons interact strongly with the atoms in the material. But as with predicting the stock market, the number of possible interactions is prohibitively large. “It is actually impossible to calculate directly,” he says. “The only thing we can do is use a smart way of sampling all these scattering processes.”

Betting on Monte Carlo

Caltech researchers are addressing this problem by applying a technique called diagrammatic Monte Carlo (DMC), in which an algorithm randomly samples spots within the space of all Feynman diagrams for a system, but with some guidance in terms of the most important places to sample. “We set up some rules to move effectively, with high agility, within the space of Feynman diagrams,” explains Bernardi.

The Caltech team overcame the enormous amount of computing that would have normally been required to use DMC to study real materials with first principle methods by relying on a technique they reported last year that compresses the matrices that represent electron-phonon interactions. Another major advance is nearly removing the so-called “sign problem” in electron-phonon DMC using a clever technique that views diagrams as products of tensors, mathematical objects expressed as multi-dimensional matrices.

“The clever diagram sampling, sign-problem removal, and electron-phonon matrix compression are the three key pieces of the puzzle that have enabled this paradigm shift in the polaron problem,” says Bernardi.

In the new paper, the researchers have applied DMC calculations in diverse systems that contain polarons, including lithium fluoride, titanium dioxide, and strontium titanate. The scientists say their work opens up a wide range of predictions that are relevant to experiments that people are conducting on both conventional and quantum materials — including electrical transport, spectroscopy, superconductivity, and other properties in materials that have strong electron-phonon coupling.

“We have successfully described polarons in materials using DMC, but the method we developed could also help study strong interactions between light and matter, or even provide the blueprint to efficiently add up Feynman diagrams in entirely different physical theories,” says Bernardi.

The paper is titled, “First principles diagrammatic Monte Carlo for electron-phonon interactions and polaron.” Along with Bernardi and Luo, Jinsoo Park (MS ’20, PhD ’22), now a visiting associate in applied physics and materials science at Caltech and a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of Chicago, is also an author. The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program, the National Science Foundation, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility. Luo was partially funded by an Eddleman Graduate Fellowship. Calculations of transport and polarons in oxides were supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Clarkson Aerospace Corp.

Since the 1800s, energetic particles have probed the fundamental nature of matter.

Rutherford’s gold foil experiment showed that the atom was mostly empty space, but that there was a concentration of mass at one point that was far greater than the mass of an alpha particle: the atomic nucleus. By observing that some of the emitted, radioactive particles bounced back, or ricocheted off, in a different direction than they were emitted in, Rutherford was able to demonstrate the existence of a compact, massive nucleus to the atom.

By bombarding matter with other particles, we probe their internal structures.

The production of matter/antimatter pairs (left) from two photons is a completely reversible reaction (right), with matter/antimatter annihilating back to two photons. This creation-and-annihilation process, which obeys E = mc², is the only known way to create and destroy matter or antimatter. If high-energy gamma-rays collide with other particles, there is a chance to produce electron-positron pairs, diminishing the gamma-ray flux observed at great distances.

At still greater energies, we create new quanta via Einstein’s E=mc².

By taking a hot air balloon up to high altitudes, far higher than could be achieved by simply walking, hiking, or driving to any location, scientist Victor Hess was able to use a detector to demonstrate the existence and reveal the components of cosmic rays. In many ways, these early expeditions, dating back to 1912, marked the birth of cosmic ray astrophysics.

Early experiments with cosmic rays first revealed heavy, unstable Standard Model particles.

The first muon ever detected, along with other cosmic ray particles, was determined to be the same charge as the electron, but hundreds of times heavier, due to its speed and radius of curvature. The muon was the first of the heavier generations of particles to be discovered, dating all the way back to the 1930s.

Then particle accelerators and colliders arrived, revealing nature’s secrets at still higher energies.

Bubble chamber tracks from Fermilab, revealing the charge, mass, energy, and momentum of the particles and antiparticles created. This recreates similar conditions to what was present during the Big Bang, where matter and antimatter can both be readily created from pure energy. At the highest energies, all particles and antiparticles can be created, but at energies corresponding to “only” a temperature of ~10 billion K or so, electron-positron pairs can still be spontaneously created.

As the energy frontier progressed, more and more of the Standard Model was uncovered.

This chart of particles and interactions details how the particles of the Standard Model interact according to the three fundamental forces that quantum field theory describes. When gravity is added into the mix, we obtain the observable Universe that we see, with the laws, parameters, and constants that we know of governing it. However, many of the parameters that nature obeys cannot be predicted by theory, they must be measured to be known, and those are “constants” that our Universe requires, to the best of our knowledge.

Finally, in the 2010s, the Higgs boson was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), completing the Standard Model.

The first robust, 5-sigma detection of the Higgs boson was announced a few years ago by both the CMS and ATLAS collaborations. But the Higgs boson doesn’t make a single ‘spike’ in the data, but rather a spread-out bump, due to its inherent uncertainty in mass. Its mass of 125 GeV/c² is a puzzle for theoretical physics, but experimentalists need not worry: it exists, we can create it, and now we can measure and study its properties as well. Direct detection was absolutely necessary in order for us to be able to definitively say that.

Many hope to build new, more powerful colliders, attempting to unearth additional secrets about reality.

Deep underground, this tunnel is part of interior workings of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where protons pass each other at 299,792,455 m/s while circulating in opposite directions: just 3 m/s shy of the speed of light. Particle accelerators like the LHC consist of sections of accelerating cavities, where electric fields are applied to speed up the particles inside, as well as ring-bending portions, where magnetic fields are applied to direct the fast-moving particles toward either the next accelerating cavity or a collision point.

It could be a linear collider: probing heavy, unstable particles exquisitely.

Although there are many novel proposals for new particle colliders, including in China, at CERN, and at Fermilab, the question of whether to build a circular machine, a linear lepton collider, or to pursue a novel muon collider all remain options on the table. In an ideal world, we’d get a linear machine to study the Higgs and the electroweak phase transition with great precision, and then a circular machine to collide hadrons at even higher energies. But funding, political realities, and popular opinion will also play a major role in determining what decisions get made.

It could be a circular collider, progressing farther than ever into the energy frontier.

The Future Circular Collider (in blue) would overlap slightly with the current Large Hadron Collider, but requires an additional ring (and tunnel) somewhere upward of 80 km in circumference: dwarfing the LHC’s current 27 km circumference. Bigger tunnels and stronger magnets are needed for a more energetic hadron collider, with the FCC proposing ~16 T magnets, approximately double the LHC’s current magnet strength.

Someday, we may even build a collider around the Earth: thousands of times as powerful as the LHC.

This illustration shows a hypothetical ring around the Earth, which could represent a particle accelerator even larger than the Earth’s circumference. With approximately ~1500 times the radius of the Large Hadron Collider, such an accelerator, even with only slightly more advanced magnet technology, would be thousands of times more powerful. A particle accelerator that was merely a factor of ~10 more powerful than the LHC could potentially shed tremendous light on the matter-antimatter asymmetry puzzle.

At some point, however, there will be a limit to whatever energies colliders can pragmatically reach.

In this artistic rendering, an active, supermassive black hole whose jet points at us (a blazar) is accelerating protons to extreme energy, producing pions as daughter particles, which in turn produce neutrinos and gamma rays. Extreme events in energy are thought to be generated by processes occurring around the largest supermassive black holes known in the Universe when they’re actively feeding. The energies of these cosmic rays vastly exceed those achieved in terrestrial accelerators.

However, the Universe creates cosmic rays exceeding ~10¹¹ GeV: millions of times the LHC’s maximum energy.

The energy spectrum of the highest energy cosmic rays, by the collaborations that detected them. The results are all incredibly highly consistent from experiment to experiment, and reveal a significant drop-off at the GZK threshold of ~5 x 10^19 eV. Still, many such cosmic rays exceed this energy threshold, indicating that the heaviest cosmic rays are likely heavy nuclei, rather than the more common bare proton.

After the last collider has finished, rare, ultra-energetic cosmic rays will continue revealing the Universe’s secrets.

In May of 2021, the second most energetic cosmic ray ever detected struck Earth, producing a shower of particles detected on the ground by the Telescope Array Collaboration. These particles achieve energies more than a million times greater than the maximum LHC energy, such that after humanity has built our last collider, the energy frontier will still be accessible from space, albeit extremely rarely.

Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words.

The universe holds endless mysteries, and today’s most powerful telescopes are helping us explore them like never before. These advanced instruments drive the progress of modern astronomy, using radio, infrared, optical, and X-ray wavelengths to capture light from ancient galaxies, black holes, exoplanets, and other distant objects. Built in extreme environments and equipped with modern technology, they allow scientists to see far into space and look back in time. Each telescope on this list plays a vital role in uncovering how the universe began, how it changes, and what might exist beyond what we know.

Top 10 most powerful telescopes on Earth and in space

1. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Launched in December 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is placed about 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, at a special spot in space called the Sun–Earth L2 point. This location is stable and perfect for observing deep space without interruptions. JWST looks mainly in infrared light, which helps it see through thick clouds of space dust. This allows it to spot stars and galaxies that formed soon after the Big Bang. Its powerful instruments are so sensitive that they can catch the faintest light from faraway galaxies and even study the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system—possibly helping us find signs of life.

2. Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST)

Located in a natural depression in Guizhou, China, FAST is the world’s largest and most sensitive single-dish radio telescope. With a massive 500-metre dish, FAST listens to the universe in radio frequencies—essential for detecting signals from distant pulsars, mapping interstellar hydrogen, and searching for potential extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Its sensitivity enables the discovery of otherwise undetectable cosmic phenomena across vast distances.

3. Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)

Under construction atop Cerro Armazones in Chile, the ELT will be the largest optical/infrared telescope ever built, with a 39-metre main mirror composed of 798 hexagonal segments. Its light-gathering power will be 250 times greater than Hubble’s and will provide images 15 times sharper. Scheduled for first light around 2029, ELT is designed to investigate dark matter, black holes, early galaxies, and potentially habitable exoplanets—pushing the limits of what we know about the universe.

4. Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT)

Also rising in Chile’s high desert, the GMT uses seven large mirrors to act as a single, 24.5-metre telescope. It promises image clarity up to ten times better than Hubble, enabling it to see incredibly fine details in distant objects. Scientists hope to use GMT to directly image Earth-like planets, explore galaxy formation, and deepen our understanding of the universe’s accelerated expansion.

5. Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)

Planned for construction atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii (though delayed due to site access disputes), the TMT will feature a 30-meter segmented mirror, optimised for near-infrared and optical observations. It’s designed to study everything from the formation of the first galaxies to the evolution of black holes and the search for life-supporting exoplanets, offering unmatched resolution in ground-based astronomy.

6. Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)

Located on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands, GTC is currently the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope with a 10.4-metre mirror. It’s been instrumental in studying dark energy, stellar explosions (supernovae), and planet formation. Its location—far from city lights and high above sea level—makes it ideal for observing the universe with minimal atmospheric distortion.

7. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)

Sitting high in Chile’s Atacama Desert, ALMA consists of 66 movable radio antennas working together as one giant interferometer. By observing the coldest regions of space in millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths, ALMA can peer into dense gas clouds to uncover the birthplaces of stars and planets. It also studies ancient galaxies and the building blocks of life, such as organic molecules.

8. Gemini Observatory (North & South)

Gemini consists of two twin 8.1-metre telescopes—one in Hawaii (Gemini North) and the other in Chile (Gemini South). Together, they provide full-sky coverage. Equipped with adaptive optics and powerful spectrographs, Gemini can capture clear, detailed images of distant galaxies, stellar nurseries, and gamma-ray bursts. Its versatility makes it one of the most productive observatories in modern astronomy.

9. Chandra X-ray Observatory

Launched in 1999, NASA’s Chandra remains one of the most important telescopes for observing the universe in X-rays, a high-energy form of light. It specialises in studying extreme environments—such as the hot gas swirling around black holes, exploding stars, and neutron stars. Chandra’s precision has helped us understand the life cycles of stars and the structure of galaxy clusters.

10. Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer (MROI)

Located in New Mexico, USA, the MROI uses a technique called interferometry, where light from multiple smaller telescopes is combined to simulate the resolution of a much larger one. This approach yields ultra-high-resolution images of binary star systems, stellar surfaces, and debris disks around young stars—objects typically too fine to resolve using single-mirror telescopes.

Why these telescopes are essential tools in modern astronomy

These telescopes represent the pinnacle of astronomical technology. Their large apertures allow them to gather light from the farthest corners of the universe, enabling us to look back in time. Each observatory focuses on specific wavelengths—infrared, radio, X-ray, or optical—uncovering different layers of cosmic phenomena. Technologies like adaptive optics and interferometry enhance clarity, letting scientists image distant galaxies, exoplanets, black holes, and supernovae with astonishing precision.

India’s growing role in modern astronomy

Though not featured in the top‑ten global list, India contributes significantly to modern astronomy infrastructure:

These ten telescopes are among the most advanced tools ever built for exploring space. From JWST’s deep cosmic gaze to ALMA’s insight into galactic birthplaces, they’re transforming our understanding of the universe. As more such observatories become operational—and with countries like India boosting their astronomical capabilities—the future of space exploration looks brighter than ever.

Back to Article List

Whether you want to observe in the morning or evening, the solar system has something for you today as two worlds reach their stationary point.

Saturn stands stationary amid the stars of Pisces at 4 A.M. EDT. It is followed two hours later by asteroid 3 Juno, which reaches its stationary point in Libra at 6 A.M. EDT. 

Only Saturn is visible in the morning sky, while Juno is up after sunset. Starting in the morning, look for magnitude 0.9 Saturn 40° high in the southeast two hours before sunrise. It hangs to the lower left of the Circlet in Pisces. Just 1° to Saturn’s north is magnitude 7.7 Neptune, visible together with the ringed planet in binoculars or a telescope. Neptune will appear as a faint, “flat” star with a bluish or grayish tinge. Saturn’s motion has been keeping it relatively the same distance from Neptune for the first half of the month; now, the ringed planet will begin moving retrograde, pulling slowly away from Neptune as it slides southwest relative to the background stars. However, Saturn and Neptune will still remain within about 1° of each other through the rest of the month.

Through a telescope, you’ll also spot Saturn’s stunning ring system and likely easily find its mid-8th-magnitude moon, Titan, some 3’ east of the planet. Take note, as that moon will close in on Saturn by the end of the week and its shadow will transit the gas giant’s cloud tops.

Evening observers can look for 11th-magnitude Juno in far northern Libra, near the border of the Balance and Serpens Caput. Wait until full dark — by 10:30 P.M. local daylight time, Juno is still 40° high in the southwest, about 7.1° north of magnitude 2.6 Zubenesch (Beta Librae). Note that Juno is just 16’ southwest of a brighter, 7th-magnitude field star, and 5’ southwest of a second field star that is roughly the same magnitude as the main-belt world. 

Today marks the end of Juno’s retrograde (westward) motion, and it will now start slowly sliding southeast of its current position. It will cross the boundary into Serpens by the 23rd.

Sunrise: 5:44 A.M.
Sunset: 8:28 P.M.
Moonrise: 10:56 P.M.
Moonset: 9:38 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (84%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.

For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full Sky This Week column.