At this time of year, there is a tradition of planetarium shows about possible astronomical explanations for the story of the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Magi to the baby Jesus. Scholars have been pondering this for centuries. It’s a fun question to ponder as it mixes biblical scripture, history, astrophysics, and lets us talk about comets, novae, supernovae, planetary conjunctions, along with ancient astronomy from many cultures. See for example

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Source: Jupiter (NASA), Luna, Twilight.

“How many moons does Jupiter have?” asked Twilight.

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While finalising Twilight's Sputnik, I got thinking about all the fiction I have read which involves some sort of stargazing. One which came to my mind was Isaac Asimov's classic short story Nightfall, a tale of an alien world which is only plunged into darkness once every 2000 years or so

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It was great to see that Twilight’s Sputnik remained orbiting around the Popular Stories box for some five days—far longer than I expected for such a short story. And it has been an exciting week for space science, with the amazing photos from the Rosetta mission. Let’s hear about comets from Twilight and Luna…

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