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The seed that would sprout into the New York Times Space and Astronomy Calendar was planted back in 2014 — because of “The Simpsons.”

The cable channel FXX celebrated its acquisition of syndication rights to the long-running animated comedy with a 12-day marathon, broadcasting all 552 episodes of the show that had been made up to that point. Michael Roston, then an editor working with The Times’s Culture desk, thought readers would appreciate a public Google calendar that informed them when certain episodes would air.

“It was just sort of this rogue experiment,” Mr. Roston said. “I don’t really know if anyone actually used it.”

About a year later, Mr. Roston moved to the Science desk, and using a calendar to enhance news delivery was still on his mind. “When I got more involved in our space coverage, it just sort of seemed to fit perfectly,” he said. And 2017 was a good year to start one, given that a significant portion of the United States was in the path of a total solar eclipse.

That August, a couple of weeks before the eclipse, the first Times space calendar was published.

The Science desk has released a version annually since. As in recent years, the 2023 calendar, which came out on Sunday, allows readers to sync their Outlook, Apple or Google Calendar apps with it so that they can anticipate eclipses, equinoxes, meteor showers, rocket launches and the year’s other noteworthy moments in astronomy.

For each event, Mr. Roston creates an entry with a short description and a link to a Times article on the topic. Of the tens of thousands of readers who have used the Times space calendar since 2017, some have emailed to ask, “Why no moon phases?” The answer lies in a desire to provide a collection of events that informs rather than overwhelms; otherwise, Mr. Roston said, “it’s just going to clog up your calendar with dozens of things.”

To keep the offerings at just the right number, Mr. Roston sticks to major events, such as eclipses and meteor showers, and those that would merit an article in The Times. “I think an event has to have a newsworthiness to it, especially if it’s something that hasn’t happened before, when it comes to spaceflight in particular,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting when a small company like Rocket Lab launches something to the moon for the first time.”

Subject to weather and technical issues, rocket launches are among the most fickle items. Take the Artemis I launch on last year’s calendar: When the Science desk got word from NASA that liftoff was scheduled to happen in August, a calendar entry was added for Aug. 1. Then, when the launch was officially set for Aug. 29, the entry moved — and moved again, and again, when various problems delayed the liftoff. (Artemis I finally embarked on its journey around the moon on Nov. 16.)

“There’s a lot of these events that keep moving sideways,” Mr. Roston said. “You know that they’re going to happen during the year, but you don’t know which date. So we have to account for the ambiguity.”

Some readers may be tempted to pore over the 2023 calendar in its entirety, wanting to see what the year holds regarding astronomy events. But the calendar is meant to evolve. The article each item links to can change as The Times updates its coverage, so Mr. Roston encourages users to check back on the day or week of an event to view new content.

This year’s highlights include an annular solar eclipse in October that will be visible from Oregon to Texas, as well as in parts of Mexico and Central and South America; Rocket Lab’s plan to send a probe to Venus, with liftoff tentatively scheduled for May; and several robotic landers heading for the moon. Perhaps the most exciting event of all isn’t even on the calendar yet: the first orbital test flight of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, Starship. NASA’s Artemis III mission will use a version of the spacecraft to put astronauts on the surface of the moon as early as 2025. The date of the test launch has yet to be announced, though speculation has surfaced over the past few months.

Once SpaceX sets an official time, Mr. Roston will upload an entry, and he will add others throughout the year as space companies and organizations confirm pending liftoffs — all the more reason to check in with the calendar regularly.

To learn more about space and astronomy events in 2023 and to upload them to your calendar app, go to nytimes.com/spacecalendar.