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Astronomy Live

What’s in the sky above you right now and tonight: the planets, the Moon and the brightest stars on a live sky view, when each one rises, is highest and sets, whether you can see it tonight and when it’s next on show. Plus the Sun and twilight, the Moon’s phases, eclipses and meteor showers, the Space Station passing over, aurora chances, the Earth itself, and the wandering magnetic north pole.

Sky for London

Live sky view

now

The circle is the whole sky: the edge is the horizon, the centre is straight overhead. Hold it above your head with north at the top and it matches the sky. Bigger dots are brighter. Click anything for details.

Above the horizon

    The Sun, Moon and planets

    today and tonight, for your place
    BodyNowRisesHighestSetsBrightnessTonightNext good view

    The Moon

    Next 30 nights

    The Sun, daylight and darkness

    The International Space Station

    visible passes over your place

    Earth

    where it’s day and night right now, and where Earth is on its orbit

    The planets around the Sun today, seen from above the North Pole. Distances are squashed so the outer planets fit; the real Neptune is 30 times farther out than Earth.

    Coming up

    eclipses, meteor showers and close pairings, worked out for your place

    Aurora (northern lights)

    Loading the latest space weather…

    The magnetic north pole

    where your compass really points, and how fast it’s moving

    Will Earth’s magnetic field flip?

    Earth’s magnetic field has reversed many times: the last full reversal was about 780,000 years ago, and over the past few million years reversals have come on average every 200,000–300,000 years, but very irregularly. The field has weakened by roughly 9% since the 1840s, and there is a weak patch over the South Atlantic (the South Atlantic Anomaly) where satellites take more radiation.

    None of that means a flip is imminent. Weakening phases often recover, and a reversal, when one does happen, takes about 1,000 to 10,000 years, not days. Life came through every past reversal; the practical effects would be on satellites, power grids and navigation, which already account for the moving pole. The fast drift of the north magnetic pole since the 1990s (shown above) comes from flows of molten iron in the outer core, especially under Canada and Siberia, and is not by itself a sign of a reversal.

    Pole positions: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field and World Magnetic Model, one per year. Today’s position is our estimate from the latest year’s movement.

    About these calculations

    Everything in the sky is calculated live in your browser from standard astronomical formulas: the Sun and Moon from Jean Meeus’s Astronomical Algorithms, and the planets from NASA JPL’s orbital elements. We checked them against JPL’s Horizons system: positions agree to within a few hundredths of a degree (Saturn about 0.07°), and sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset to about a minute. Rise and set times assume a flat horizon at sea level; hills and buildings will hide things for longer.

    “Visible tonight” means at least 10° above the horizon while the Sun is at least 6° below it. Eclipses are worked out from the Moon’s and Sun’s positions, including how much of the Sun is covered from your own location. Never look at the Sun directly, even in an eclipse, without proper eclipse glasses.

    Space Station passes use the station’s latest orbit from CelesTrak, the same data our Global Situation Monitor uses; they are visible passes, when the station is sunlit against a dark sky. Aurora chances use NOAA’s planetary K-index. Your location stays in your browser; if you search by postcode we look it up through postcodes.io.

    Related: Weather UK Live (cloud and rain decide what you’ll actually see), Global Situation Monitor.