Meteor showers, eclipses, a planetary parade and 13 full moons will be visible in the night sky in 2026. Here’s when to see them.

The Ursid Meteor Shower is a subtle but reliable annual celestial event that occurs each December around the winter solstice. It produces fewer streaks of light than more prolific meteor showers like the Geminids or Perseids, but arrives at a time of year when long nights and dark skies favor careful observers.

The Ursids are a yearly meteor shower that occurs when Earth passes through debris shed by Comet 8P/Tuttle, a short-period comet that circles the Sun approximately every 13.5 years.

From dazzling meteor showers to dramatic eclipses visible across parts of the world, the year ahead offers many opportunities to witness life-changing celestial events. Here are the astronomical events you won’t want to miss in 2026.

A fireball streaks across the morning sky above NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. A rare display of “shooting stars” may grace the night sky this weekend as a newly found ...

Meteor activity is best observed from late evening through to dawn, with the hours before local sunrise often yielding the richest display as Earth rotates into the incoming stream.