Overview
- NASA says Comet C/2025 R3 will pass about 44 million miles from Earth in late April and will likely need binoculars or a small telescope to see.
- The sungrazer C/2026 A1 (MAPS) reaches perihelion on April 4 and could appear low in the western evening sky from April 5 to 8 if it survives the Sun’s heat.
- Experts caution that comet brightness is unpredictable, with estimates for MAPS ranging from a Venus-like glow to a faint or fragmented remnant.
- The Lyrid meteor shower peaks April 21–22, when dark-sky viewers can expect roughly 15–20 meteors per hour after 10 p.m.
- Early April also features Mercury’s best view of the year near sunrise and an Artemis II launch window for a 10-day crewed test flight without a lunar landing.