Big fancy space telescopes are all well and good, but there’s something about being able to see things with your own eyes–either directly, or through the sort of telescope that doesn’t require an entire building to house it. Happily, 2024 was a banner year for stargazers, headlined by a full solar eclipse and with a supporting cast that included spectacular aurorae at both poles, a comet bright enough to see with the naked eye, a bunch of supermoons and another, and a lesser-known eclipse!
The eclipse
First and foremost: for anyone lucky enough to be in the path of totality, the most memorable celestial event of 2024 was undoubtedly the full solar eclipse visible from multiple US states, along with northern Mexico and the far east of Canada, on April 8. It’s hard to overstate what a remarkable and humbling experience it was to hear the birds suddenly go silent, see the shadows sharpen and then disappear completely, feel the temperature plummet, and be able to stare for a couple of precious minutes at the sun’s corona in all its silvery glory.
The aurorae
The sun’s corona was also responsible for another, very different spectacle a month later, when a series of powerful flares blasted some of the gases that make up the corona away from the sun. This ejected material streamed out into the solar system, and when it encountered the Earth’s magnetic field, it lit up our night skies: both the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis were visible much further south and north, respectively, than usual.
The other eclipse
Did you know that the full eclipse wasn’t the only eclipse that happened in 2024? There was also an annular solar eclipse in October. Both varieties of eclipse involve the moon passing perfectly between the Earth and the sun, but unlike in a full eclipse, in an annular eclipse the moon’s disc isn’t large enough to completely obscure the sun. The result is a so-called “ring of fire” eclipse. The 2024 annular eclipse’s path passed mostly over the Pacific Ocean, but it was visible from southern Chile and Argentina, and also from Rapa Nui.
The comet
2024 also featured the brightest comet since Hale-Bopp passed by in 1997. The comet in question was Comet A3, also known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, and it appeared in our skies during October. The comet was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, and it came with a rare feature: an anti-tail, pointed toward the sun instead of away from it.
The annual Perseid meteor shower
Speaking of comets, it’s the remains of another comet—Swift-Tuttle, which last passed by Earth in 1992—that are responsible for the annual Perseid meteor shower. The Perseids are a staple of amateur astronomers’ calendars, lighting up our skies every August. This year was no exception, and the fact that the moon set around midnight during the shower’s peak made 2024 particularly good for seeing as many meteors as possible.
The supermoons
If the moon has been looking awfully large of late, you’re not imagining it: late 2024 has seen a series of four supermoons. (Or, to give them their wonderfully exotic technical name, a series of “perigee syzygys”.) These occur when a full moon coincides with the moon passing relatively close to the Earth, making it appear unusually large in the night sky. The full moon earlier this month was also unusual for another reason—it appeared the furthest north it’ll be until 2043.
The spaceplane
And finally, something completely different: in July this year, Austrian astronomy enthusiast Felix Schöfbänker used his telescope to capture some images of Shenlong, the elusive reusable space plane whose existence China has never confirmed. The uncrewed plane has been in development for decades, and what little the world does know about it is due in part to the efforts of amateurs like Schöfbänker.
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