What’s Up: May 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA

 

Shooting stars before dawn, a brilliant meetup between the Moon and Venus and a rare blue moon to end the month

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower brings shooting stars before dawn, the Moon meets brilliant Venus after sunset, and May wraps up with a rare Blue Moon.

Skywatching Highlights

• May 5 + 6 : Best time to see the Eta Aquarids 
• May 18: Moon and Venus conjunction
• May 31: Blue moon

Transcript

Shooting stars before dawn, a brilliant meetup between the Moon and Venus, and a rare “Blue Moon” to end the month.

That’s What’s Up this May.

First up: the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which peaks in early May.

These shooting stars come from Halley’s Comet. Every year, Earth passes through the comet’s dusty trail, and those tiny particles burn up in our atmosphere. That’s what creates those bright streaks across the sky.

Halley’s Comet last passed through the inner solar system in 1986, and won’t return until 2061.

The Eta Aquarids appear to come from the constellation Aquarius. That’s where the shower gets its name.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

These meteors are fast, racing into Earth’s atmosphere at about 40 miles per second. And because they’re moving so quickly, they can leave behind glowing trails that linger for a moment after the flash.

At peak, the shower can produce up to about 50 meteors an hour under ideal skies. The best time to watch? In the hours before dawn, looking generally toward the eastern sky.

For the best chance of seeing meteor showers, go somewhere dark, let your eyes adjust for about 20 to 30 minutes, and avoid bright lights, including your phone screen.

The peak is expected around May 5th to 6th, but bright moonlight this year may wash out some of the fainter meteors.

On May 18th, look west just after sunset.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Moon gets a bright little sidekick as Venus shines nearby. The crescent Moon helps point the way, making this an easy one to spot.

Venus is one of the brightest objects we can see from Earth, often called the Evening Star.

The Moon and Venus look close together because they line up from our point of view on Earth. But in reality, they’re separated by millions of miles in space.

Last month, Artemis II launched right around the time of the April 1st Full Moon, sending astronauts around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years and giving us some spectacular new views of our closest neighbor.

And now, May ends with another lunar moment: a Full Moon on May 31st. This one is a Blue Moon.

But it actually won’t look blue.

Blue Moon is the name given to the second Full Moon in a single calendar month. It’s a relatively rare event, hence the phrase “once in a blue moon.”

So whether you’re up before sunrise or out after sunset, May is a great time to look up.

Here are the phases of the Moon for May.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

You can stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov.

I’m Raquel Villanueva from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up for this month. 

Source: What’s Up: May 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA - NASA Science

Integrated land planning could ease food, energy and biodiversity conflicts worldwide - Earth - Environment

Area of potential conflict between additional land allocated to conservation under the Nature-First planning scenario and development under the Production-First scenario. Credit: Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-69952-6

While the world is a big place, humans are making greater and greater demands on the same areas of land. "This means that, unless we use the same land to serve multiple needs and coordinate this effort through planning, it is unlikely that we will have enough land for conservation, food and energy," said Grace Wu, a professor in UC Santa Barbara's Environmental Studies Program.

Strategic planning reveals land tradeoffs

An international team of researchers looked into the tradeoffs between different land uses, revealing that strategic planning would enable progress toward global biodiversity, climate and sustainable development goals simultaneously. The study, published in Nature Communications, finds that, if an integrated method for land-use planning is employed, future land development would impact 15% fewer species and cut carbon loss by 19%.

A framework for multi-sector land use

The study provides a framework for multi-sector land-use planning that considers the, often overlapping, needs of nature conservation, agriculture and renewable energy. The paper maps these needs around the world, finding that the places needed to meet targets for protected land and productive land frequently intersect.

"There's a tendency to think that development and conservation inevitably conflict, but that's largely because we plan in silos," said co-author Patrick Roehrdanz, director of climate change and biodiversity at Conservation International. "When we use a multi-sector approach to land allocation across sustainable development goals, we see that most important areas for nature can be conserved while still leaving room for development—and importantly, we can also identify areas where priorities for nature and development do overlap."

Balancing climate, food and biodiversity

Achieving global climate goals while meeting growing demand for food will likely result in more land devoted to both renewable energy infrastructure and farming, the researchers said. However, if we also aim to meet global biodiversity goals, the allocation of these lands cannot come at the expense of nature.

"Both renewable energy and natural climate solutions play critical roles in fighting climate change," said Roehrdanz. "But clean energy projects still use land, and if they're built without considering nature, they can add pressure on wildlife and ecosystems—which undermine the effectiveness of natural climate solutions as well as biodiversity goals. Our study shows that better coordination can reduce those conflicts and allow both goals to succeed."

Consequences of uncoordinated development

According to the study, if future development is planned without considering nature and the benefits it provides to humanity, land demands for renewable energy and agriculture could impact nearly 1 million square kilometers of high-priority conservation areas, including the habitats of 440 threatened species and 21 gigatons of needed carbon stocks. It would also result in insufficient land availability to achieve conservation and development targets. This could be avoided with proactive and data-informed planning.

If development planning is coordinated and collaborative, the authors found that impacts on nature can be significantly reduced. This approach would reduce the potential number of species displaced by 15% and the amount of carbon lost by 19%.

Why single-sector planning falls short

"Single-sector land use planning such as planning for biodiversity or for development, which is the standard, is going to lead to worse outcomes and greater conflict," explained UCSB co-author Ashley Larsen, a professor at the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab) in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. Supporting the food and energy development needed in the future while maintaining biodiversity will require coordination and collaboration.

"While perhaps obvious at a high level," she said, "we show the magnitude of synergies and tradeoffs between siloed and coordinated approaches to land management."

Data, local input and global tools

Country-level data, restoration commitments and local and Indigenous input strengthen this type of multi-sector planning and lower the potential for carbon or nature loss, according to the study. Alongside local data and perspectives, the framework is designed to be applicable regionally and nationally.

"The paper demonstrates a practical, scalable approach to multi-objective land-use planning," said lead author Cameryn Brock, a research scientist at Conservation International at the time of the study. "Our intention is that this framework can be a useful tool for governments, companies and other decisionmakers."

Real-world applications in Colombia

UCSB and Conservation International have partnered with Arizona State University and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia to co-design land use models for Colombia's conservation planning efforts. The team, led by Amy Frazier, a professor in the Department of Geography at UCSB, is working with the country's national parks service to integrate these land-use planning scenarios into a web-based system to identify potential sites for future conservation. 

Provided by University of California - Santa Barbara 

by Harrison Tasoff, University of California - Santa Barbara

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan 

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