Milky Way Kiwi

01/12/2025

A dog, a cow, and a sheep walk into a bar.
In December, it’s called the Milky Way.

Canis Major, Ta**us, and Aries are back for the summer sky, Jupiter is shining in Gemini, and Saturn sits low in the west. The long days might shorten our nights, but the stars are still doing their best.

🔭 Read our December night-sky guide:
https://milky-way.kiwi/night-sky-monthly/in-december/

Discover the December night sky in New Zealand: the Milky Way returning after sunset, Jupiter shining bright, and Saturn gaining back its rings. Explore summer stargazing from the Wairarapa — named one of Lonely Planet’s Top 25 Experiences for 2026.

19/10/2025

A couple of bright meteors last night through our meteor camera.

31/08/2025

Life needs CHNOPS, the six essential elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and Sulphur. Curiosity found them on ancient Mars, but a new study shows Earth was born without them. Only a lucky impact with Theia made our world habitable. In contrast, Venus never stood a chance. Meet the three planetary siblings and discover why only Earth became a cradle for life....

Life needs CHNOPS, the six essential elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and Sulphur. Curiosity found them on ancient Mars, but a new study shows Earth was born without them. Only a lucky impact with Theia made our world habitable. In contrast, Venus never stood a chance. Meet t...

31/08/2025

Mars's mantle contains ancient fragments up to 4km wide from its formation—preserved like geological fossils from the planet's violent early history....

Mars's mantle contains ancient fragments up to 4km wide from its formation—preserved like geological fossils from the planet's violent early history.

29/08/2025

Cosmic rays are hitting the atmosphere constantly. One of the products of the collisions is muons, and we can detect muons on the surface of the Earth to learn about the cosmic rays....

Cosmic rays are hitting the atmosphere constantly. One of the products of the collisions is muons, and we can detect muons on the surface of the Earth to learn about the cosmic rays.

22/08/2025

NGC6025 is a beautiful open cluster close to Beta Trianguli Australis in Triangulum Australe. Visible with binoculars and great in a telescope, well worth a look....

NGC6025 is an beautiful open cluster close to Beta Trianguli Australis in Triangulum Australe. Visible with binoculars and great in a telescope, well worth a look.

08/08/2025

A free neutron’s life span is 877.83 +/- 0.22 seconds. Here’s the link to the paper with the latest measurements:

Here we publish three years of data from the UCN\ensuremath{\tau} experiment performed at the Los Alamos Ultracold Neutron Facility at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. These data are in addition to our previously published data. Our goals in this paper are to better understand and quantify sys...

21/07/2025

The next chapter in; does Betelgeuse have a companion was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters this week with the first direct image evidence of a companion. They used a technique similar to the lucky imaging technique used by astrophotographers to get a view of the 6 magnitudes dimmer star. Very cool! Off to read the full paper now!

Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and the closest red supergiant to Earth. It has an enormous volume, spanning a radius around 700 times that of the sun. Despite only being ten million years old, which is considered young by astronomy standards, it's late in its life.

15/07/2025

WIKI-WIN for New Zealand’s Dark Skies!
We’re thrilled to share that Graeme Murray, the visionary behind New Zealand’s dark sky movement and co-founder of Earth & Sky (now the Dark Sky Project), has officially been recognised with his own Wikipedia page!
His dedication to protecting our night skies and pioneering astro-tourism in Lake Tekapo helped put Aotearoa on the world stargazing map.

Read more about his journey and legacy here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Murray_(entrepreneur)

Ngā mihi nui, Graeme — and to all those working to keep our skies dark and full of stars.

Graeme Douglas Murray MNZM JP is a New Zealand tourism entrepreneur known for his role in the establishment of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.

04/07/2025

The deadline for applications for the 2025 Prime Minister’s Space Prizes has been extended to 4 September. Apply now!

These awards were announced by the Government in 2024 to recognise the talented people working in New Zealand’s space and advanced aviation sectors, and to inspire young people.

The Society manages the process to select winners on behalf of the Government.

Space Prize for Professional Excellence – for outstanding professional achievements and contributions in a space-related field ($100,000).

Space Prize for Student Endeavour – for a student in Year 12 or 13 for a science, technology, or engineering project related to space or advanced aviation ($50,000).

Find out more about the prizes and apply here https://pmspaceprizes.org.

03/07/2025

It’s Aphelion Day tomorrow! That’s when we are further from the Sun than at any other time during the year. The exact time is at 7:54am tomorrow morning (4 July) and we will be 152,087,738km from the Sun. That’s 4,984,052km further away than we were on 5 January, when we were at perihelion. That info is from timeanddate.com and the picture below is of the Sun a few days ago using Slooh’s solar telescope in the Canary Islands.

25/06/2025

With this link you can explore the imagery from the Vera Rubin Observatory.