Bakersfield Night Sky — January 3, 2026
The William M Thomas Planetarium is closed for the winter break. Our spring shows begin in February.
Tonight is the first full “supermoon” of the year. This supermoon uses the original definition of the full supermoon which says that the full moon’s distance is equal to or greater than 90% of the distance from apogee (farthest distance from Earth) to perigee (closest distance to Earth). A newer definition of a full supermoon is a full moon happening within 24 hours of perigee. Tonight’s supermoon would not fit the newer definition, since the full moon happens 1.513 days after perigee.
For 2026, the other full supermoons using the original definition will happen on November 24 and December 24 but only the December 24 supermoon would also fit the newer definition, occurring within just 7 hours of perigee, so it will be the closest supermoon of the year.
Other significant moon events this year will be the annular solar eclipse of February 17 visible in southern Argentina and Chile, southern Africa, and Antarctica; the total lunar eclipse of March 3 visible in east Asia, east Australia, Pacific, and western part of North America; the total solar eclipse of August 12 visible in the very northern tip of North America, Iceland, and Spain; and the partial lunar eclipse of August 28 visible in the eastern half of North America, all of South America, and western Africa.
The Quadrantids meteor shower peaked last night but the glare of the full moon makes this year’s shower a very light shower. The Quadrantids are the result of Earth intercepting the dust trail left by the once-active asteroid 2003 EH1. The next good meteor shower of the year when the moon is in a crescent phase (so it won’t wash out most of the meteors) will be the Lyrids in late April. Other great showers in 2026 will be the Perseids in mid-August when the moon is at new phase (i.e., ideal condition!) and the Geminids in mid-December with a very thin waxing crescent moon.
In this evening’s sky, the two largest planets, Saturn and Jupiter will be visible on nearly opposite ends of the sky. Saturn will be halfway up in the southwest sky among the dim stars of Pisces. You’ll have an easier time seeing the Great Square of Pegasus above Saturn. It’ll actually be easier to go the other way: look first for the Great Square and then Saturn will be the first bright object you’ll see below the Great Square. Farther down, much closer to the horizon will be an equally bright star, Fomalhaut, at one end of Piscis Austrinis.
Jupiter becomes first visible in the east shortly before 6 p.m. in the twilight time just after sunset. Jupiter is still next to the Pollux (left) side of Gemini and still brighter than usual since we passed nearest to Jupiter at the end of December. The full moon, Pollux, and Jupiter will form a tight right triangle on the sky as they rise in the east tonight. The triangle will stretch out a bit as the night progresses due to the moon’s motion.
The other naked eye planets (Mars, Venus, and Mercury) are now clustered too close to the sun to see them. In this year, close conjunctions of the planets easily visible for us will be: Venus and Jupiter separated by less than 1.5 degrees in the evening of June 9 low in the west as the twilight glow ends; and Mars and Jupiter will be about 1 degree apart on November 14 in the east at about midnight.
Earth is at perihelion, closest distance to the sun, today at 9:15 a.m. At 91,403,445 miles, this is just 3% closer to the sun than its farthest point on July 6 since Earth’s orbit is very nearly circular.
Space exploration in 2026 will see a couple of launches. The SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission will be an array of six toaster-size CubeSats that will launch in the summer to study solar activity. The CubeSats will orbit Earth within 6 miles of each other, so they will act as a single radio telescope 6 miles across. The low radio frequencies from the sun that they’ll observe requires them to get above Earth’s ionosphere. By observing the radio emissions in the sun’s magnetic field, we hope to better understand what triggers the powerful bursts of radiation, how the particles are accelerated, and the ways that particle storms evolve.
The CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) mission is a trio of small rovers that will explore the moon autonomously, paving the way for future multi-robot missions. Each microwave oven-size robot has two stereo cameras, navigation sensors, and a multi-static ground-penetrating radar to map lunar terrain in 3D.
Artemis II will launch no later than April to take a crew of four astronauts on a 10-day flight around the moon. This will be the first crewed test flight to the moon since Apollo. Artemis III will send people to the moon’s South Pole region in mid-2027 (55 years after the last Apollo mission).
The Europa Clipper spacecraft will swing by Earth for a final slingshot maneuver to Jupiter in December 2026. Europa Clipper was much too heavy for any of our rockets to launch it directly to Jupiter, so it has used a couple of gravity assists to fling it outward to Jupiter, arriving in April 2030.
I hope that you’ll be able to find a time and place sometime in 2026 to gaze up in wonder at a dark night sky filled with thousands of stars.
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Director of the William M Thomas Planetarium at Bakersfield College
Author of the award-winning website www.astronomynotes.com
