The must-see astronomy events in 2025 visible from Silicon Valley

Last year brought a number of celestial spectacles to Bay Area skies, including a partial solar eclipse and a rare local glimpse of the northern lights. What does 2025 have in store? We spoke with Foothill College astronomy instructor Geoff Mathews about the biggest highlights on the astronomical calendar, why we could see more aurora borealis action on the Peninsula and the best ways to stargaze. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

The Six Fifty: What are some of the more rare or spectacular astronomical events set to take place this year that we’ll be able to see on the Peninsula?

Geoff Mathews: I tend to think of events as things you can see when you’re out on a walk or things you need to go to a telescope to see. In terms of things you can see on a walk, the top stars are not stars at all, but actually the planets. So if you’re going out on a regular basis paying attention to the night sky, you’ll be able to see these wanderers as they move across the sky from night to night.

Right now, Venus is just whopper bright, so if you’re going for a walk in the evening right after sunset, brightest thing in the sky off to the west is going to be Venus. Saturn happens to be kind of close to it on the sky right now, and so as the sky darkens you can easily spot Venus, then as the sky darkens you can see Saturn there next to it. With a telescope, both of those are just fantastic. Saturn famously has its rings, so we’re getting to the point in its orbit where we’re going to be viewing Saturn edge-on, and so the rings are super thin.

Another thing to be watching for, Mercury is really hard to spot. It’s faint, and it’s always very close to the sun on the sky when you can see it at all. But in late February, it’s going to be close to Saturn on the sky. So if you had to pick a time to try and go out and see Mercury, to try to spot it by eye yourself, Feb. 25 through March 1 or so, that’s the time to do it. Saturn and Mercury are both going to be really close to the western horizon in twilight, 45 minutes, 50 minutes after the sun sets you’ll be able to spot them over the western horizon.

There’s some nice cosmic photo bombs coming up this year. On Jan. 13, the moon is going to be passing in front of Mars from our perspective. So on Jan. 13 at about 5:55 p.m., we’re gonna see Mars, a little red dot, disappear behind the moon and it will be hidden from view until about 6:45 (p.m.). So that’s a cool thing to be watching out for.

On March 13, there will be a full lunar eclipse visible from the Peninsula. It’ll start to be noticeable a little bit after 9, maybe like 9:30 is when you’ll really be able to start telling that the moon is passing into Earth’s shadow. And then the moon will appear fully darkened around 10:30, and then around 11:30 it’ll be in the deepest part of Earth’s shadow.

It will actually appear to turn a deep red, because while the moon will be fully shadowed by earth, the earth has this thin layer of atmosphere that lets some light through and it scatters that light around. So the red light, every sunrise and sunset on earth at that time, that red light from those events will be passing through to the moon and illuminating it, and that will go until about 12:30 in the morning.

For things like seeing the phases of Venus, you need a telescope. For seeing the rings of Saturn, you need a telescope. But seeing these motions across the sky, seeing the moon occulting Mars or the lunar eclipse, those are things where no special tools are needed — just the right timing.

The Six Fifty: The Quadrantids meteor shower just peaked – when will other meteor showers will be visible?

Geoff Mathews: There are meteor showers that happen throughout the year actually. Some tend to be better than others, but it’s just tendency. When we’re seeing a meteor shower, we’re actually seeing dust from comets burning up in our atmosphere. So we are passing through the left-behind tail of comets.

There’s the Quadrantids basically happening right now, the Lyrids in April, Eta Aquariids, the Draconids in October, the Leonids in November, the Geminids. For any of these, they’ll be causing an uptick in the number of meteors that you see.

For any of them, the key to enjoying them is I would say a nice, dark spot where you can lay out on a blanket looking up at the sky with a hot mug of tea to enjoy the hours. Even the best meteor showers, one can expect it’s still every few minutes you’re seeing something appear on the sky. So with all of them the key to enjoying them is patience and snacks. 

The Six Fifty: In 2024, the northern lights were visible locally in May and October. What’s the expectation for the Bay Area in 2025?

Geoff Mathews: There’s no guarantee of these events happening, but the chances of them happening are higher. During solar maximum, every day the Earth is rolling a die to see “Hey, do we get an aurora down here?” During the solar maximum that die is being weighted, so the odds are a little higher.

2025 is expected to be the peak of this cycle; 2024 has been the rising period, then 2025 and then dropping off as we go into 2026 and 2027. There’s a lot of variation. Some cycles have dropped off very quickly, some cycles have held steady for awhile. Our understanding of what’s going on inside the sun that leads to that variation, we’re still working on developing that understanding.

The Six Fifty: What are some of the best spots on the Peninsula to stargaze?

Geoff Mathews: For things like the northern lights, you want to have as good a view toward the north as possible. There are plenty of parks where you can find a dark corner. The rules will vary from park to park regarding hours of access, but in general just get as far away from city lights as you can: That’s the golden rule of astronomy.

In terms of my own favorites, I like my local park because it’s convenient, and for most things it’s an OK spot. If I really wanna go out and see this meteor shower, yeah I’d do a longer drive out to someplace where there’s a nice view with as little blockage of the view to the horizon as possible. Though things blocking the view toward the horizon can also be helpful in terms of blocking lights, so there’s a balancing act to be made there.

The trails along the San Francisco Bay would be pretty good. The amount of effort to go from getting OK conditions, that’s a 15-minute bit of effort, versus an hour and a half drive level of effort to truly get out away from everything — that’s kind of what you’re looking at.

The Six Fifty: What tips do you have for novice stargazers?

Geoff Mathews: The modern day has brought us some really fantastic tools in terms of helping you find and identify what you’re looking at on the sky. There are several phone apps that you can use to figure out what you’re seeing or there are tools you can use, multiple websites like Stellarium where you can prepare for the night. You can pick out “OK, here’s a constellation I think I’ll recognize, here’s another constellation I think I’ll recognize, so I’m looking for the thing that is in between.” A little bit of pregame, “OK, what am I gonna be looking for?” can go a long way.

I’d always recommend a nice sky guide that has charts of the constellations to help you navigate your way around the sky. With all of these tools, using a book or using your phone, one of the things you have to worry about is the dark adaptation of your eyes.

A red flashlight helps with that. It takes some time for your eyes to adapt to the darkness, and blue light will ruin it and basically reset you to zero. But red light does not cause as much trouble for your night vision. Some phones will have a mode where you can basically put it into night mode, where it will just be displaying things in shades of red so as to not disrupt your night vision.

I’ve seen these tools developing over the past couple of decades now where you can just pull out your phone and say, “What is that bright thing over there?” hold it up, “Oh, that’s Venus,” and then start exploring from there. I recommend people take advantage of these tools to start learning their way around the night sky and to help themselves find these things to be looking for.

Foothill College’s observatory, in partnership with the Peninsula Astronomical Society, is open to the public for free observations of the night sky every Friday from 9-11 p.m. and solar observing every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, weather permitting. The observatory also offers special year-round events. Programs are free for visitors of all ages. For more information, visit their website foothill.edu/astronomy/observatory or the observatory, which is located adjacent to parking lot 4 and the Krause Center for Innovation (Building 4000), 4100 Perimeter Road, Los Altos Hills.

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