| | | October 25 How Small is the Smallest Habitable Exoplanet? | | | |
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 | | The habitable zone, as traditionally understood. New findings suggest that rocky planets smaller than Earth might still have liquid water, even if they're somewhat inside a star's primary habitable zone. Image via NASA. | | |
| | | What's a node? | | Venus passes its descending node on Friday at 2 UTC. What is it? And why does astronomer Guy Ottewell say that nodes "shape the orbits of the moving bodies and set them up for whatever else happens" ... ? Read more and see a diagram. | | | What we're reading Fires explode across California | | From the Los Angeles Times … As violent winds from the northeast swept into California on Wednesday night, an eruption of fires big and small followed: first northern California wine country, then San Bernardino, Orange County, Marin County, Santa Clarita, Eagle Rock and the San Fernando Valley. Firefighters were able to control some while others exploded out of control. All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses in the San Fernando Valley are closed Friday due to smoke and fire concerns. Read more about fires throughout California. View multiple alerts from the Los Angeles Fire Department. | | | | | |
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|  | | Will you see all 5 bright planets tonight? | The 2 brightest planets - Venus and Jupiter - are both up after sunset. Saturn and Mercury are fainter, but you can spot them, too. Be sure to start looking shortly after the sun goes down. Binoculars might come in handy for Mercury. The 5th planet is Mars. See the chart below for Saturday morning's view of Mars, and read more. | | | | | |
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 | | Will you see all 5 bright planets tonight? | Here are Mars and the very slim waning moon on Saturday morning. Mars is just now returning to the eastern sky before sunup, as seen from around the globe. Read more. | | |
