The Summer Triangle, Reboot

Learn to spot this celestial guidepost in today's episode of Astro Minute!

What is Astro Minute?

Welcome to the Astro Minute! I'm Lauren Smyth, and with the help of astronomer and teacher Kelli Smyth, I'll be your tour guide as we explore the secrets of the night sky sixty seconds at a time.

Welcome to the Astro Minute, where we’re exploring the universe sixty seconds at a time. I’m Lauren Smyth, and today we’re exploring the Summer Triangle.

The Summer Triangle, an important stellar guidepost nearly overhead in early autumn evenings, features three of the most prominent stars in the sky and a swath of our Milky Way Galaxy. Its brightest corner is Vega, the third brightest star in the northern autumn sky and our future pole star - in about twelve thousand years. The Triangle’s long corner is nearby Altair, and its third corner is Deneb, the top of the Northern Cross and a distant supergiant star a whopping two hundred thousand times more luminous than our sun. The fuzzy band running through the Triangle is our own Milky Way Galaxy, and while binoculars won’t reveal the black hole or exoplanets in this exciting region of the sky, they will reveal rich fields of stars, star clusters, and nebulae.

That’s your Astro Minute!