For three days this week, four heavenly bodies are aligned in the sky: Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon.¹ Many of us now have reduced work hours due to the coronavirus pandemic, so staying up late or getting up early to see special events in the night sky is now an option.

Tonight’s (April 7) full moon is special because it occurs when the moon is close to perigee, the point in its orbit where it is closest to Earth.^1,2 This event is called a perigee-syzygy by astronomers, but it is informally known as a supermoon. Because the moon is a little closer than normal, it will be a little larger in the sky than normal.

Around three thousand years, King David wrote,

The starry night sky is a good reminder of God’s greatness and power.

For northern-hemisphere families in isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic, a recently discovered comet may provide some needed diversion.¹ This comet is dubbed ATLAS after the Hawaiian organization that discovered it: the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert system. The comet is barely bright enough to be seen with binoculars under dark sky conditions.²

Astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet (exoplanet) orbiting so close to its host star that it is “perilously close” to the distance where it can be torn apart by gravitational forces.^1-3