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March 2026

WHAT’S UP(COMING)! – Observation Calendar Mar-May 2026

Source for events and links below are In-The-Sky.org, Dominic Ford, Editor. The links provide details for each event including a scale on how difficult they are to observe. Additionally, here’s a link to a printable PDF for “Navigating the mid March Night Sky” from our friends at the Astronomical League! Mar 3 – Total lunar eclipse            – Full Moon Mar 18 – New Moon Mar 20 – Conjunction of the Moon and Venus             – March equinox Mar 21 – Asteroid 20 Massalia at opposition Mar 22 – Mercury at highest altitude in morning sky Mar 23 – Close approach of the Moon and M45 Mar 26 – Conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter Mar 27 – Close approach of the Moon and M44 Apr 1 – 136472 Makemake at opposition            – Full Moon Apr 2 – The Sombrero Galaxy is well placed Apr 3 – Mercury at greatest elongation west Apr 5 – Messier 94 is well placed Apr 15 – The Whirlpool Galaxy is well placed Apr 17 – New Moon Apr 18 – Messier 3 is well placed Apr 15 – Close approach of the Moon and M45 Apr 22 – Conjunction of the […]

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NASA’s Webb Examines Cranium Nebula

The differences in what Webb’s infrared instruments reveal and conceal within the PMR 1 “Exposed Cranium” nebula is apparent in this side-by-side view. More stars and background galaxies shine through NIRCam’s view, while cosmic dust glows more prominently in MIRI’s mid-infrared.

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Record-Breaking Natural Laser Discovered 11 Billion Light-Years Away

Lasers aren’t only produced by humans here on Earth, but occur naturally in space as masers and, more powerfully, as megamasers.
While mapping out the neutral hydrogen in the Universe, the MeerKAT array serendipitously discovered the most distant megamaser ever in 2022, located 6.6 billion light-years away.
Now, that record has been broken again here in 2026, with a new gravitationally lensed megamaser shattering all prior records, yielding a discovery a whopping 11 billion light-years distant.

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NASA’s Hubble Identifies One of Darkest Known Galaxies

In the vast tapestry of the universe, most galaxies shine brightly across cosmic time and space. Yet a rare class of galaxies remains nearly invisible — low-surface-brightness galaxies dominated by dark matter and containing only a sparse scattering of faint stars.

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Assessment of Rare ‘Teenage’ Planetary System Deepens Understanding of Cosmic Evolution

Planetary systems such as our solar system take hundreds of millions of years to evolve. Since humanity has only existed for a sliver of that time, astronomers have only observed planetary systems at birth or, more often, long after they have settled into adulthood. There is an information gap about what happens in the middle. 
But soon, this understanding will change. For the first time, astronomers are able to characterize the teenage planetary system TOI-2076 in detail since its discovery in 2020. The system, spotted mid-transition, offers a novel lens into the once-mysterious evolutionary stage.

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