Your UK guide to amateur astronomy. Detailed guides to every planet, star and constellation, weekly night sky updates, and evidence-based UAP research. https://watchthestars.co.uk/ 2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-nasa-chief-isaacman-ufo-images/ 2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

NASA has UFO images it can't explain, administrator Jared Isaacman has confirmed. What he actually said, and why his Mars comment might be the bigger story.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-fourth-ufo-file-release-pentagon/ 2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The Pentagon's fourth UFO file release covers a nuclear site lockdown, the 1949 green fireballs and new footage from near China. Here's what's really in it.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-tess-microlensing-first-exoplanet/ 2026-07-10T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-10T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

NASA's TESS has discovered a new planet by bending spacetime: Gaia23bra b, a super-Jupiter 40,000 light-years away, found via gravitational microlensing.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-milky-way-spiral-arms-bigger-chandra/ 2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

How big is the Milky Way? NASA's Chandra has found two of our galaxy's spiral arms sit about 10% further out than we thought, measured with X-ray light echoes.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-euclid-oldest-quasars-discovered/ 2026-07-08T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-08T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The oldest quasars ever discovered: ESA's Euclid telescope has found 31 from the universe's first 770 million years, including two new record-holders.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-earth-aphelion-farthest-from-sun/ 2026-07-07T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-07T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

Earth reached aphelion on 6 July 2026 — its farthest point from the Sun all year. So why is it the middle of summer? The answer is all about tilt.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-new-ufo-whistleblower-congress-scif/ 2026-07-07T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-07T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

A new UFO whistleblower is talking to Congress — behind closed doors first. Why the SCIF-first strategy is a deliberate break from the Grusch playbook.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-avi-loeb-ufo-council-scientists-backlash/ 2026-07-06T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-06T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

Avi Loeb is leading the White House's new UFO council, and scientists are pushing back. Here's what the critics say and why it matters.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-tianwen-2-quasi-moon-kamooalewa/ 2026-07-06T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-06T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

China's Tianwen-2 spacecraft has arrived at Kamo'oalewa, Earth's quasi-moon that may be a blasted-off chunk of our real Moon. Here's what happens next.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-05-northern-lights-uk-solar-flare-alert/ 2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The northern horizon stays live tonight. After the first cloud from the 30 June X1.1 solar flare sparked G1–G2 (Minor to Moderate) storming over the weekend, a second coronal mass ejection is now inbound and forecast to reach Earth late on Sunday 5 July or into Monday 6 July. The Met Office expects Unsettled to Active conditions through the day, then a likelihood of further G1–G2 storming and a chance of isolated G3 (Strong) intervals once that cloud arrives — enough to bring aurora into play for Scotland, Northern Ireland and much of northern England during Sunday night's short window of darkness. The catch is still the calendar: barely two weeks past the solstice, the UK gets almost no true darkness, so timing is everything. Here's exactly when and where to look.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-hayabusa2-torifune-asteroid-flyby/ 2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

Hayabusa2 flies past asteroid Torifune today at 10:30am UK time, passing just 1km away at 12,000mph. Here's what's happening and how to watch live.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-gj-3378b-habitable-super-earth/ 2026-07-04T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-04T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

A potentially habitable super-Earth has been found 25 light-years away. New measurements show GJ 3378b is rocky and sits in its star's Goldilocks zone.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-swift-rescue-launch-delayed/ 2026-07-03T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-03T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The Swift rescue mission was delayed mid-flight on 2 July after a problem stopped the last Pegasus rocket from launching. Here's what happened and what's next.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-swift-rescue-mission-launch-today/ 2026-07-02T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-02T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The Swift rescue mission launches today at 10:09am UK time. The last Pegasus rocket ever will carry a robot to catch NASA's falling telescope. Here's how to follow it.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-ufos-over-military-bases-pentagon-stumped/ 2026-07-02T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-02T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

UFOs over military bases forced F-22s to relocate from Langley, says ex-Pentagon official Christopher Mellon. Hundreds of incursions a year, and no answers.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-night-sky-july-guide/ 2026-07-01T00:00:00.000Z 2026-07-01T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

Your July 2026 night sky guide for the UK: Mars meets Uranus in their closest pairing until 2053, Venus passes Regulus, the Delta Aquariids arrive, and noctilucent clouds glow on the northern horizon.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-nasa-moon-base-update-landers/ 2026-06-30T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-30T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

NASA's Moon Base just took another step forward. Administrator Jared Isaacman has unveiled a fresh round of lunar lander awards and laid out the road to landing astronauts on the Moon in 2028.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-mars-pleiades-conjunction/ 2026-06-29T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-29T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

Mars and the Pleiades make their closest pairing until 2034 this week. Here's when to look, where in the sky to find them, and how to see it from the UK.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-mit-lincoln-lab-1952-flying-saucer-tape/ 2026-06-29T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-29T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

A 1952 'flying saucer talk' by Project Blue Book chief Edward Ruppelt has sat in a private lab's archive for 74 years. Congressman Eric Burlison says MIT Lincoln Laboratory has now agreed to hand it over.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-night-sky-tonight-27-june/ 2026-06-27T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-27T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

What's in the night sky tonight from the UK: the June Bootids meteor shower peaks, the Moon meets red Antares, and Mars sits beside the Pleiades before dawn.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-hubble-mxdfz4-reionization-galaxy/ 2026-06-26T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-26T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

Hubble has spotted ultraviolet light from a galaxy that existed 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang — the first clear example of the kind of galaxy that cleared the early universe's fog.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-strawberry-moon-june/ 2026-06-26T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-26T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

June's full Strawberry Moon peaks late on 29 June 2026 and rides the lowest, most golden arc of any full moon this year. Here's when and how to see it from the UK.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-3i-atlas-jwst-ancient-origin/ 2026-06-25T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-25T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

James Webb data suggests comet 3I/ATLAS formed 10–12 billion years ago — nearly as old as the universe, with 30× the deuterium of any Solar System comet.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-disclosure-forum-2026-washington/ 2026-06-24T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-24T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

On 25 June, two US senators, four members of Congress and Harvard's Avi Loeb gather in a Senate hearing room for an all-day, on-the-record forum on UAP — and you can watch it live from the UK.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-moon-spica-conjunction-23-june/ 2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The waxing gibbous Moon sits right beside Spica, Virgo's brightest star, on the evening of 23 June 2026. Here's what time to look and where from the UK.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-spacex-starfall-reentry-capsule/ 2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

SpaceX launched Starfall today — a disk-shaped capsule built to return up to a tonne of cargo from orbit, aimed squarely at the space-manufacturing boom.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-trump-uap-governance-board-avi-loeb/ 2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The White House has set up a UAP Governance Board and given Avi Loeb a science council to advise it. Here's what it is — and the catch nobody mentions.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-euclid-q2-galactic-bulge-survey/ 2026-06-22T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-22T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

On 24 June, ESA's Euclid releases its deepest-ever view of the Milky Way's crowded core — a 4.8-square-degree survey built to help confirm planets around other stars.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-nasa-swift-telescope-rescue-mission/ 2026-06-21T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-21T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

NASA's 22-year-old Swift telescope is slowly falling out of orbit. On 27 June a robot called Link launches to grab it and push it back to safety — the first rescue of its kind.

https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-06-summer-solstice-longest-day-uk/ 2026-06-20T00:00:00.000Z 2026-06-20T00:00:00.000Z Ian Clayton

The June solstice arrives at 9:24am BST on Sunday 21 June, giving the UK its longest day of the year. Here's the science, the Stonehenge connection, and what it means for stargazers.