APOD: 2026 August 18 – Perseids from Perseus

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Perseids from Perseus

Explanation: This was a good year for the Perseids meteor shower. A key reason was the Moon was absent from lighting up Earth’s night sky so that more meteors were visible than usual. Where was the Moon? It was busy visiting the Sun. Near the Perseids peak, the Moon moved directly in front of the Sun and created a total solar eclipse visible from Greenland and Spain. The Perseids occur when the Earth collides with a stream of Sun-orbiting debris cast off by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Perseid meteors, although typically only the size of a sand grain, tend to be fast and bright because Swift-Tuttle’s debris orbits the Sun in a direction partly opposite Earth’s orbital motion. In the featured image compilation, accumulated over several nights from Jizerka in the Czech Republic, the Perseids meteor streaks can be traced back to a single location on the sky — its radiant in Perseus.Gallery: Perseids Meteor Shower of 2026Tomorrow’s picture: open space

Date

August 18, 2026

Credit

Jakub Kuřák

Authors & editors:

Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of:

ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

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