What's Up: August 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

A solar eclipse, the Perseids, bright Venus after sunset, and a deep partial lunar eclipse highlight August's skywatching. 

Skywatching Highlights

• Aug. 5: Last Quarter Moon
• Aug. 12: Total solar eclipse across northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland, northern Spain, and part of Portugal; partial eclipse in parts of the U.S.; New Moon
• Aug. 12-13: Perseid meteor shower peak under dark skies
• Aug. 14-16: Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation and shines low in the west after sunset
• Aug. 27-28: Partial lunar eclipse visible from much of North and South America and parts of Europe and Africa

Transcript

A solar eclipse, one of the year's best meteor showers, Venus at its brightest in the evening sky, and a lunar eclipse to close out the month.

That's “What’s Up” for August.

On Aug. 12, a total solar eclipse crosses northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain, with a small corner of Portugal inside the path of totality.

In parts of the United States, from Alaska to North Carolina, the eclipse is partial. The Moon will take only a small bite out of the Sun, and the amount of coverage will vary with location.

A map showing viewing areas of the August 2026 total solar eclipse.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Remember to watch safely. Use certified eclipse glasses or a safe solar viewer any time any part of the Sun is visible. Regular sunglasses are not safe. And never use binoculars, a telescope, or a camera without a solar filter made for the front of the optics.

Later that same night, the Perseid meteor shower will light up the sky, peaking the evening of Aug. 12 into the early morning hours of the 13th. And with a New Moon arriving on the 12th, the skies will be ideally dark.

The Perseids happen every year when Earth passes through a debris stream left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. As those tiny bits of comet dust hit our atmosphere at high speed, they burn up as bright streaks of light.

To view this meteor shower, look toward the northeast once it's fully dark and watch for the constellation Perseus to clear the horizon. This is where the meteors originate, but let your eyes wander, because they can flash across any part of the sky.

For the best view, stay out late as the stars climb higher, find a dark open spot, and give your eyes 30 minutes to adjust.

This illustration shows where in the night sky to look for the Perseid meteor shower.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Aug. 14-16, Venus reaches its greatest eastern elongation, which is its widest apparent separation from the Sun during this evening appearance.

Look low in the western sky shortly after sunset for the bright object that will outshine every star around it. Through a telescope after sunset, Venus will look close to half lit, like a tiny lunar phase.

This illustration shows where to observe Venus after sunset in August.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

On the night of Aug. 27, continuing into Aug. 28 for some time zones, the Full Moon slips through Earth's shadow, resulting in a partial lunar eclipse. It will be visible from much of North and South America and parts of Europe and Africa.

Viewing areas for the August 2026 lunar eclipse.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

At maximum eclipse, about 93% of the Moon's diameter will be inside Earth's dark central shadow, called the umbra. The Moon will not be completely covered, but it can look dramatically darkened, with a rusty, coppery tint along the covered edge.

Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with just your eyes. Binoculars or a small telescope can give you a closer view of Earth's curved shadow moving across the Moon.

Here are the phases of the Moon for August.

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: August 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA - NASA Science

How Your Body’s Own Recycling System Could Calm Inflammation Without Weakening Immunity

Most anti-inflammatory drugs work the same way: they turn down the immune system as a whole, which calms the flare-up but also leaves patients more vulnerable to infection. Researchers at VIB and KU Leuven, working with international collaborators, have found a way around that trade-off. By targeting a specific type of blood vessel rather than immune cells themselves, they were able to reduce inflammation in mice with psoriasis while leaving the rest of the immune system untouched. The findings, published in Immunity, point to a promising new route for treating chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disease.

The vessels that decide who gets into the lymph nodes

Lymph nodes are the immune system’s checkpoints, filtering lymph and blood for pathogens and coordinating the response against them. Immune cells reach the lymph nodes through specialized blood vessels called high endothelial venules, or HEVs. These vessels are studded with adhesion molecules known as peripheral node addressins (PNAd), which act like a sticky coating that pulls circulating lymphocytes out of the bloodstream and into the node.

First author Dr Kathryn Jacobs (VIB-KU Leuven) describes PNAd as the signal that tells immune cells to leave the bloodstream and enter the lymph node.

Cellular recycling keeps the gates open

During infection, HEVs ramp up PNAd production to pull in more lymphocytes and strengthen the immune response, but in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disease, that same mechanism keeps immune cells flooding in long after they’re needed, worsening symptoms. What controls PNAd production had remained largely a mystery.

The team, led by Prof Gabriele Bergers at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology, traced it back to autophagy: the cell’s internal recycling process for clearing out old or damaged components. When the researchers blocked autophagy specifically in HEVs, PNAd production dropped, the vessels lost their specialized identity, and far fewer lymphocytes were able to enter the lymph nodes. Notably, blocking autophagy in other blood vessel types has the opposite effect, ramping inflammation up rather than down — a sign that HEVs handle autophagy in a distinct way.

Testing the idea in psoriasis

To see whether disrupting HEVs could treat disease without touching the immune system directly, the team turned to psoriasis, a chronic autoimmune skin condition affecting an estimated 125 million people worldwide. HEVs can form within psoriatic skin lesions, where they recruit immune cells and keep local inflammation going. Existing treatments mostly work by suppressing immunity broadly, which raises the risk of serious infection.

In a mouse model of psoriasis, blocking autophagy in HEVs cut immune cell recruitment and reduced skin inflammation. The researchers then tested a pharmacological approach: a drug that blocks a signaling receptor HEVs need to form and function. It reproduced the same effect, lowering both immune cell infiltration and inflammation.

Prof Gabriele Bergers says the results point to HEVs as a promising therapeutic target, though more work is needed before the approach could reach patients.

What’s next

The team hopes to refine the LTβR-blocking drugs used in the study. A better antagonist, Dr Jacobs suggests, could potentially help with a range of autoimmune diseases beyond psoriasis — dialing down the immune response without disarming the immune cells that patients still need for everyday protection.

Original paper: Autophagy maintains high endothelial venule identity and function during inflammation, published in Immunity (DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2026.06.020). 

Source: How Your Body’s Own Recycling System Could Calm Inflammation Without Weakening Immunity