Amazing Limerick summer skies and a heartbeat in space

ON a warm July night, while twilight lingers in our northern skies, keep an eye out for the shimmering silver-blue wisps of noctilucent clouds.

These ghostly high-altitude clouds are made of ice crystals, and they only appear around this time of year - glowing eerily after sunset, like nature’s own space weather report from the edge of the atmosphere.
This month also marks an astronomical anniversary that captured hearts around the globe. On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its dramatic flyby of Pluto, nearly a decade after launch. Despite speeding past at 14 kilometers per second, it returned spellbinding images of this distant world - icy mountains, nitrogen glaciers, and the now-iconic heart-shaped region named Sputnik Planitia.

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The surface was surprisinglyyoung, suggesting that Pluto is still active beneath its crust. Later, New Horizons journeyed deeper into the Kuiper Belt, unveiling strange, untouched worlds like Arrokoth, revealing the building blocks of planets - and our origins.

But this month’s sky also invites us to reflect on an even older milestone. Back in 1840, a pioneering chemist named John Draper took the very first photograph of the Moon - a blurry but breathtaking leap into celestial imaging.

Today, we’re mapping the Moon in 3D, but it all began with that single, patient exposure from a rooftop in New York.

As we peer up this July - whether at clouds lit from below, or planets and stars far beyond - remember that every look skyward connects us to stories of discovery and human curiosity.

The Limerick Astronomy Club meets next on the first Thursday in September, in Mary Immaculate College, Room 202 at 8pm. We'd love to welcome you and embark on this cosmic journey together. Reach out to us at limerickastronomyclub@gmail.com for more info.