Updated

NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for November 12, 2026 showed the Moon, Venus and the star Spica appearing close together in the sky. The entry is a photograph captured in Poland, showing a crescent Moon above the Tatra Mountains with bright Venus close by, a little lower on the horizon. Spica, the bright star to the left of Venus in the constellation Virgo, lies about 250 light-years away. Such apparent close meetings between planets and other objects are called conjunctions; they follow the laws of celestial mechanics rather than chance. The explanation notes that Spica was found in 1890 to be a binary star of two massive blue stars orbiting each other every 4 days, but that earlier this year it was reported to be a triple system. The entry is a photograph with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.