EarthSky.org, 7/1/13, Bruce McClure and Deborah Byrd

Two planets appear in the July evening sky all month long: Venus and Saturn. Venus beams in the west at dusk, and sets roughly one and one-half hours after sunset all month long at mid-northern latitudes. Saturn shines moderately high in the south to southwest at nightfall and stays out all evening long. While these two worlds should be pretty easy to spot in the evening sky all throughout July 2013, the morning planets won’t really become very noticeable until the second half of the month.

Space.com - 6/27/13, Miriam Kramer

The image drawn in this black charcoal pictograph found in a Tennessee cave is also found on prehistoric, religious artifacts.
CREDIT: Jan Simek, Alan Cressler, Nicholas Herrmann and Sarah Sherwood / Antiquity Publications LTD.
 

Some of the oldest art in the United States maps humanity's place in the cosmos, as aligned with an ancient religion.

A team of scientists has uncovered a series of engravings and drawings strategically placed in open air and within caves by prehistoric groups of Native American settlers that depict their cosmological understanding of the world around them.

Link: Space.com

Space.com- 6/28/13, Joe Rao

There's a giant scorpion hovering overhead, but have no fear. This creepy crawler is actually the constellation Scorpius. It's all sparkle and no sting.

In his book "The Stars in Our Heaven – Myths and Fables," (Pantheon Books, 1948) author Peter Lum writes: "The scorpion is essentially a creature of darkness, a furtive little animal that lurks in the shadows, hides under stones or in any dark crevice and cannot bear to face the light … only at night does it come out in search of its prey. Although seldom fatal (its sting) is extremely painful; hence the scorpion is usually disliked, feared and avoided by anyone who has ever come in contact with him."

Link: Space.com

2012IndyInfo.com- 6/24/13

During the past decade, astrochemists have found that DNA molecules, the fundamental building blocks of life, find their origins not on Earth, but in the Cosmos. They are the languange of the Universe –the information they inherited comes from the stars and the cosmic ecology that formed them.

In February, 2013, scientists using the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a giant cloud of gas some 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, announced that they had discovered a molecule thought to be a precursor to a key component of DNA and another that may have a role in the formation of the amino acid alanine.

EyesontheSky.com - 6/17/13

The last few days of spring are this week, and that means summer constellation observing!  The night sky has shifted from the area of sky we saw in spring, thanks to Earth's revolution carrying it another 90 degrees around the Sun.  The places many constellations in a better place to view both them and the objects they contain, such as Ursa Minor, Draco, Cepheus, Cygnus, Aquila, Lyra, Hercules, Scutum, Sagittarius and Scorpius.  Though some of these shapes have only 3rd magnitude or fainter stars, the brighter stars of summer can guide the way - such as the Summer Triangle asterism.  Learn all about the summer sky in this week's video.

Link: EyesOnTheSky.com