Weekly Sky and Space Update

Your guide from WLRH’s Curiosity Squad to what’s up in North Alabama’s sky for the week of July 13 2026

Provided by Eric Silkowski from the Von Braun Astronomical Society

It’s time for this week’s Sky and Space Update. I’m Eric Silkowski with the von Braun Astronomical Society. This week, the sun starts out rising at 541 a.m. and ends the week rising at 545 a.m. Sunset is 802 p.m. on Monday, but slides to 759 p.m. by Sunday. Overall, we lose nearly seven minutes of sunlight, ending the week with 14 hours and 13 minutes.

The moon starts the week dark at less than 1% illuminating, becoming new on Tuesday and slowly waxing to about 35% illumination by Sunday.

Mercury is between the sun and the Earth at inferior conjunction on the 13th, so will not be visible this week. Jupiter is obscured by the sun’s glare, setting less than 20 minutes after the sun. Venus is best placed for evening viewing. It’s visible in Leo from sunset until around 1020 p.m. Saturn is rising a little earlier each night, around midnight. Mars follows, rising around 245 a.m.

The constellation Scorpius shines low in the southern sky during summer evenings. Last week, we talked about the scorpion’s blood-red eye antares. This week, let’s talk about the tail.

Looking upward towards the left, the scorpion’s tail is tipped by the stinger, the bright star Shaula. While Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky, Shaula comes in a very respectable 24th, making it relatively easy to spot despite being low on the southern horizon. Shaula turns out to be a triple star system.

The brightest are a pair of large main-sequence blue stars, 10 times and 8 times more massive than our sun. The third member of the trio is small relative to the other two, yet is still twice as massive as our sun. Astronomers classify it as a pre-main-sequence star, meaning it’s early in its life. Although all three stars are the same age, at around 10 million years, they will live very different lives. The two large stars are doomed to live very short lives, in the millions of years rather than the billions of years, like the smallest member of this group will enjoy. The largest will die in a spectacular supernova.

Interesting fact, Shaula is one of the stars on the flag of Brazil, as is Antares. Just like the U.S. flag, Brazil has stars representing their states. They currently have 27 states and 27 stars Unlike the U.S. flag, Brazil’s stars represent actual night sky constellations and particular stars. Not surprisingly, as a southern hemisphere country, all but one of the stars on Brazil’s flag are in the southern celestial hemisphere. The only exception is Procyon at 5 degrees north celestial latitude. Shaula is one of eight stars on Brazil’s flag depicting Scorpius.

I hope you take the time this week to look south towards Brazil and find the great southern constellation of Scorpius. And as always, please turn off any unnecessary outdoor lighting so we can better see the stars near the horizon.

With your Curiosity Squad sky and space update for the week of July 13, 2026, this is Eric Silkowski.