The final moon of the year occurs in the waxing gibbous phase over the vegetation in Tehatta, West Bengal, India, on Dec. 31, 2025. (Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A year of amazing celestial events has gone by, but don’t fret because 2026 has many more in store.
Kicking off the year’s cosmic wonders is the moon, drawing the first astronauts to visit in more than 50 years and a ring-of-fire eclipse at the bottom of the world in February, as well as a total solar eclipse at the top of the world in August.
From northern lights and meteor showers, here are some of the events sky gazers can look forward to in 2026:
The moon
Early next year, NASA is launching its first visit to the moon in more than 50 years.
The astronauts, which includes three Americans and one Canadian, will zip past the moon, do a U-turn behind it, and then come back home.
The mission will last 10 days.
Eclipses
A total solar eclipse will take place on Aug. 12.
Timeline:
It will begin in the Arctic and cross over Greenland, Iceland and Spain.
Totality will last two minutes and 18 seconds as the moon moves directly between Earth and the sun to blot out the latter. By contrast, the total solar eclipse in 2027 will offer a whopping 6 1/2 minutes of totality and pass over more countries.
For 2026, the warm-up act will be a ring-of-fire eclipse in the Antarctic on Feb. 17, with only a few research stations in prime viewing position. South Africa and southernmost Chile and Argentina will have partial viewing. A total lunar eclipse will follow two weeks after February’s ring of fire, with a partial lunar eclipse closing out the action at the end of August.
Planets
Six of the solar system’s eight planets will prance across the sky in a must-see lineup around Feb. 28. A nearly full moon is even getting into the act, appearing alongside Jupiter. Uranus and Neptune will require binoculars or telescopes. But Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn should be visible with the naked eye shortly after sunset, weather permitting, though Mercury and Venus will be low on the horizon.
Mars will be the lone no-show. The good news is that the red planet will join a six-planet parade in August, with Venus the holdout.
Supermoons
There’s a parade of supermoons coming in 2026.
The year's first supermoon in January coincides with a meteor shower, but the moonlight likely will obscure the dimmer fireballs. The second supermoon of 2026 won’t occur until Nov. 24, with the third — the year’s final and closest supermoon — occurring the night of Dec. 23 into Dec. 24. This Christmas Eve supermoon will pass within 221,668 miles (356,740 kilometers) of Earth.
Northern lights
Exciting news for astronomy fans, aurora activity is set to be extremely active on March 20.
Around the spring equinox, geomagnetic conditions are likely to spike aurora activity, making it the perfect time to view the northern lights.
The best place to see them would be in Iceland, northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, Alaska or northern Canada.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from FOX Weather and The Associated Press. This story was reported from San Jose.