NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Stargazing
September Sky: The Moon Crashes the Pleiades, Then Blots Out Jupiter
A waning gibbous Moon slides past the Pleiades this week, sets up a close pass with Jupiter on Sept. 6, then briefly occults the giant planet on Sept. 8 for skywatchers in Canada, the contiguous U.S., Greenland and Russia.
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Stargazing
Sunspot AR4513 Fires an M7 Flare as NOAA Posts a G2 Storm Watch Days Before the Lunar Eclipse
A sprawling, magnetically tangled sunspot let loose an M7 flare and a run of CMEs, prompting a G2 storm watch whose aurora timing may or may not line up with this week's partial lunar eclipse.
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Stargazing
Comet 220P/McNaught Erupts Again, Glowing Green Over Two Continents
A faint periodic comet has now blown up twice in 2026, brightening thousands-fold and turning into a binocular-visible green fuzzball that astronomers still can't fully explain.
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Stargazing
This Week's Sky: Venus Closes In on Spica as Jupiter Climbs the Dawn
From August 22-26, 2026, watch the waxing gibbous Moon slide past the Teapot and into Capricornus while Venus edges toward Spica and Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn stack up in the morning sky.
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Stargazing
APOD Solves the Case of the 'Mystery Meteor' Crossing the Eclipsed Sun
A bright streak filmed crossing the partially eclipsed Sun from Spain on August 12 looked like a made-for-astronomy Perseid meteor — until NASA's APOD team checked the numbers and found an airplane contrail instead.
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Stargazing
Venus Reaches Greatest Eastern Elongation, Dazzling the August Evening Sky
Venus hit its widest separation from the Sun on August 14-15, 2026, blazing at magnitude -4.3/-4.4 low in the west near the crescent Moon and Spica, with a half-lit telescopic disk visible into late September.
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Stargazing
Venus Hits Its Widest Evening Separation From the Sun This Weekend — Here's How to Spot It
Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation on August 15, sitting 46 degrees from the Sun at magnitude -4.4 for its best evening show of 2026, with a crescent Moon and Spica as guideposts.
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Stargazing
Total Solar Eclipse and Peak Perseids Collide Over Europe on August 12
A total solar eclipse crosses Greenland, Iceland, and Spain on August 12, 2026, then the New Moon lets that same night's Perseid peak deliver up to 100 meteors an hour with zero lunar glare.
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Stargazing
August 12 Total Solar Eclipse Will Cross Greenland, Iceland and Spain — Then Hand Off to the Perseids
A total solar eclipse sweeps from the Denmark Strait through Iceland into northern Spain on August 12, 2026, then gives way to a moonless, "optimum" Perseid peak the same night.
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Stargazing
Comet 10P/Tempel 2 Hits Peak Brightness at Closest Earth Approach — Its Best Return of the Century
Jupiter-family comet 10P/Tempel 2 brightened to roughly magnitude 8-9 as it passed within 61 million km of Earth on August 3, 2026, offering Southern Hemisphere observers with binoculars or a small scope the best view of this comet for the rest of the century.
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Stargazing
August 2026 Skywatching Guide: Perseids Peak Under a New Moon, Flanked by a Total Solar Eclipse and a Near-Total Lunar Eclipse
A moonless Perseid peak, a total solar eclipse over Greenland, Iceland and Spain, and a 93-96% partial lunar eclipse over the Americas make August 2026 one of the year's busiest skywatching stretches.
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Stargazing
Full Moon to Wash Out Peak of Delta Aquariid–Alpha Capricornid Double Meteor Shower
A nearly full moon will drown out most of the Southern Delta Aquariids' July 28-29 peak, but the slower, brighter Alpha Capricornid fireballs that follow on July 30-31 should still cut through the glare.
