C₂ Swan · 516.5 nm
Small-body science and planetary defence — near-Earth object tracking, sample-return missions, meteor shower forecasts, and the occasional object from another star.
Comets & Asteroids
With a new Moon in play, skywatchers anticipate a fine Perseid performance this year.
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 12 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a…
A shot so spectacular it will leave other astrophotographers green with envy.
The Arctic, Greenland, Iceland and Spain will have a total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026. Parts of Europe and North America will see a partial. The post Total solar eclipse to dazzle observers on August 12 first appeared on EarthSky .
Don't miss the peak of the Perseid meteor shower tonight. Here's when, where and how to see it.
EarthSky's visible planets and night sky guide. Total solar eclipse today! And Perseids peak today and tomorrow. Will you see one during the eclipse? The post Visible planets and night sky guide for August first appeared on EarthSky .
Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. August 11: Venus, half-lit New Moon occurs at 1:37 P.M. EDT, bringing us a total solar eclipse. The event is not visible worldwide — in this case, the narrow path of totality travels only across…
A snowflake cannot form out of nothing. Water vapour will sit in the air quite happily, supercooled and reluctant, until it finds a speck of dust to build on and then it crystallises around it. Cosmochemists have had a version of that problem for decades. The early Solar System…
The only total solar eclipse of the year coincides with the Perseid meteor shower. Here's what you need to know to watch the eclipse.
The Perseid meteor shower peaks this week! It's best between midnight and dawn. The peak is August 12 and 13 before dawn, but watch around those mornings, too. The post Perseid meteor shower 2026! It’s time to watch first appeared on EarthSky .
"If anyone does see one, they had better go play the lottery asap!"
Here's how to watch the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse live online for free.
On Aug. 10, 1972, an Earth-grazing fireball burst through the sky over North America. Here's what happened.
The Perseid summer light show is back—and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere.
On Aug. 9, 1976, the Soviet space program launched its last moon mission. Luna 24 was a robotic sample return mission and the third of its kind.
A rare meteorite that crashed through a New Jersey roof contains evidence of ancient salty fluids, organic compounds, and amino acids from a primitive asteroid. Its pristine chemistry could offer new clues about how space rocks helped supply early Earth with some of the…
J. L. Rizos et al 2026 Planet. Sci. J. 7 123 Using gravitational flow simulations, researchers link smooth areas on the face of a comet to a single event 600–1,200 years ago, possibly connected to multiple close encounters with Jupiter.
August brings four major celestial events, including a solar eclipse and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Dark New Moon skies could make the Perseids especially impressive, while Venus will blaze in the west after sunset. A deep partial lunar eclipse closes the month…
A recent study investigated the possible mechanisms that caused a known Jupiter-family comet to split in two.
Brian P. Powell et al 2026 AJ 172 14 Unlike traditional “shift and stack” algorithms, a newly developed asteroid-detection method requires no assumptions on speed or direction; this method can be applied to upcoming time-domain surveys.
The first detection of sugar in the interstellar medium could shed more light on how life began on Earth
Hideyo Kawakita et al 2026 ApJL 1000 L60 Spectra of 3I/ATLAS as it retreated from its encounter with the Sun show that the comet’s mixing ratios of CN, C3, and C2 with respect to water are similar to those of solar system comets, while NH2 is depleted.
Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes. The dust contains complex carbon-rich molecules built from elements essential to life and produces infrared signals similar to real material found in space. By studying…
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region of the solar system. Its unusual chemistry suggests that planet-cooling dust and debris, rather than sulfur inside the asteroid, may have delivered the deadliest blow.
A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. The debris was launched from near a gravitational gateway controlled by Jupiter, sending fragments toward Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The…
Catriona A. Murray and Zachory Berta-Thompson 2026 AJ 171 344 An analysis of synthetic starspot-crossing events suggests that while starspot longitudes are tightly constrained in high signal-to-noise data, other properties are more loosely determined.
Finding craters, speaking out against anti-science policies, preventing asteroid impacts, making art — these are all great ways to make a difference.
Giulia Schettino and Alessandro Rossi 2026 Planet. Sci. J. 7 110 Though the asteroid Apophis will not collide with Earth in 2029, there is a slim but present possibility that it will strike an artificial object orbiting Earth, potentially compromising future missions to the…
Hayabusa2 and Tianwen-2 get up close and personal with two asteroids.
Astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) to study the composition of 3I/ATLAS, the brightest interstellar object ever seen, in detail. By measuring specific chemical fingerprints — the first observations of this kind for a comet…
NASA ·
NOIRLab/NSF/AURA ·
APOD · Marcin Rosadziński ·
The vocabulary below is the actual list this subject is matched on — nothing is hidden and nothing is inferred. Terms on the top line settle it on their own; the second line counts, but needs company.
near-earth objectplanetary defenseplanetary defencemeteor showerasteroid beltkuiper beltoort cloudinterstellar objectsample returnosiris-rexhayabusadart missionapophistrojan asteroidcentaur objectbennuryuguperseidgeminidleonid
cometasteroidmeteoritemeteoroidfireballimpactorlucy missioncoma taildimorphosdidymos3i/2i/borisovoumuamua