A Dark Sky for Us, and a New Moon for Uranus

This week we head outward to the seventh planet, where the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a brand-new moonlet orbiting Uranus. Barely six miles across, this tiny world is so small you could, in theory, walk around it in a single day. But is “walking” even possible when the surface gravity is only a whisper? We run the numbers and explore what it would feel like to live in such a micro-gravity landscape, where a careless jump could fling you into orbit.

Back under Earth’s skies, the nights begin in darkness. The week opens with a fresh New Moon, offering deep-sky windows before the crescent brightens. Saturn dominates the evening hours, Venus and Jupiter rule the dawn, and the Aurigids meteor shower brings a chance of surprise streaks before sunrise. We’ll also shine a light on three quieter constellations — Lacerta the Lizard, Aqua ...