[NASA] APOD: 2026 August 8 – A Messier Moment for Tempel 2

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APOD

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3. APOD: 2026 August 8 – A…

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APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

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A Messier Moment for Tempel 2

Explanation: Which of these is

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? You guessed it – the one on the right is a globular star cluster. The diffuse greenish coma of periodic comet

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is at left in the frame. In fact the globular star cluster is Messier 30, also known as M30, or the 30th entry in astronomer

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catalog of things which are not comets. The well-known 18th century astronomer kept a list of objects he observed, now his famous Messier

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, which did not move from night to night against the background stars and so were not the comets he was hunting for. So the famous comet hunter would get the correct answer too, even though his telescope would show both 10P/Tempel 2 and distant star cluster as similar looking faint and fuzzy objects in his field of view. Recorded on July 29, this modern telescopic image

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as it briefly swept close on the sky to M30. While the periodic comet’s faint, narrow,

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seems to pierce the globular star cluster, Tempel 2 was a mere 3.5 light-minutes away.

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is some 28,000 light-years distant.

Tomorrow’s picture: Contemplating the Sun

Date	August 8, 2026
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Authors & editors:	Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe
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