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The Sky Above Albert Einstein at the Moment of Death
Person · 1879–1955 · Time recorded
The record
- Date of death: 1955-04-18
- Time of death (local): 01:15 (Time recorded) — Contemporaneous reports (NYT, The Daily Princetonian, TIME) are unanimous: he died at 1:15 a.m. at Princeton Hospital, in his sleep.
- Place: Princeton, New Jersey, United States
- UTC: 1955-04-18T06:15Z
The sky at that moment
- Zenith (the point directly overhead): RA 225.10°, Dec 40.18°
Star closest to the zenith
Computed with the same standard astronomy as our free calculator: the recorded time and place give the local sidereal time, which fixes the zenith; the closest star by angular distance inside a ±15° declination band of the real catalog is selected. What is shown here is the purely astronomical result — the nearest star to the zenith.
- Catalog ID: HIP 73476
- Constellation: Boötes
- Magnitude: 7.09
- Distance (light-years): 543.6
- Angular distance from zenith (degrees): 0.1543°
Brightest stars in that sky
The brightest real stars (catalog IDs from the HYG star catalog — mostly Hipparcos/HIP numbers) that were above 10° altitude at that same moment.
- HIP 91262 — Lyra, Magnitude 0.03 (48.6°)
- HIP 97649 — Aquila, Magnitude 0.76 (18.6°)
- HIP 65474 — Virgo, Magnitude 0.98 (34.1°)
- HIP 80763 — Scorpius, Magnitude 1.06 (20.0°)
- HIP 102098 — Cygnus, Magnitude 1.25 (30.0°)
Sources & verification
Last verified: 2026-09-17
This page is an independent astronomical record. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by the person, their family, or their estate. Memorial naming is commemorative and is not recognized by the IAU.
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