APOD: 2026 August 8 – A Messier Moment for Tempel 2
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On August 8, 2026, an Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) image captured the remarkable moment when periodic comet Tempel 2 passed close by the distant globular star cluster Messier 30. The image, taken by Dan Bartlett, shows Tempel 2, a dwarf comet with an orbital dust trail, seemingly piercing through the dense, star-filled cluster. While Tempel 2 is relatively close, at a distance of only 3.5 light-minutes, Messier 30 resides much farther away at approximately 28,000 light-years.
Globular star clusters like M30 are ancient collections of hundreds of thousands of stars packed tightly together in a spherical shape. In contrast, comets are made up of ice, rock, and dust, and their tails are formed when they approach the Sun, melting the icy components. Prior to this encounter, both Tempel 2 and M30 appeared to the naked eye as faint, fuzzy objects in the night sky.
However, the 18th-century astronomer Charles Messier kept a catalog of these non-comet objects, which would include both Tempel 2 and M30 as such.
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- APOD: 2026 August 8 – A Messier Moment for Tempel 2 science.nasa.gov
