What's up in the June 2026 Skies? Part 1 - Planets and Space News

What’s Up in the June 2026 Skies? Part 1June 2026 brings a beautiful mix of skywatchinghighlights and space news.In this episode, we’ll look at Mercury’s best eveningopportunity of the month, the beautiful Venus-Jupiter conjunction on June 9,the Moon joining the evening planets around June 17, and the June solsticemarking the start of astronomical summer.We’ll also talk about how the Moon phases shape yourobserving plans this month, including the best dark-sky window around New Moonand what you can still observe when the Moon is in the evening sky.Then in Space News, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft preparesfor a Mars gravity assist on its way to asteroid Psyche, and the Vera C. RubinObservatory begins issuing its first scientific alerts, giving astronomers anew way to monitor the changing sky in near real time.Part 2 will focus on the Lunar Feature of the Monthand a deep-sky tour as the summer Milky Way begins to take over from thegalaxies of spring.