NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for November 10, 2026, features a striking image of Saturn being occulted by the Moon, a celestial event captured by photographer Roberto Ortu. The featured image is a digital fusion of three separate photographs taken from Sardinia, Italy, shortly after sunset.
The sequence documents the moment the Moon moved in front of the planet, temporarily hiding Saturn from view. The composite image includes a shot of Saturn just before it disappeared, followed by two images of the Moon taken with different exposure lengths to capture the details of the event.
According to the APOD explanation, this specific occultation was visible from a narrow swath of Earth in early 2025, stretching from Greenland through central Europe and into northern Africa. The phenomenon, formally known as an occultation, occurs when one celestial body passes in front of another, blocking its light.
A notable detail in the image is a bright dot located near Saturn, which is not a moon of the planet. Instead, it is the star 85 Aquarii, which is positioned further behind Saturn than Saturn is behind the Moon. This alignment highlights the vast depth of the solar system and the relative positions of these celestial objects.
The next time the Moon will move in front of Saturn in a manner visible from some location on Earth is not until 2031. The image is credited to Roberto Ortu and was edited by a team including Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, and Keighley Rockcliffe.
The APOD is a service provided by the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in collaboration with NASA Science Activation and Michigan Tech University. Each day, the project features a different image or photograph of the universe, accompanied by a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
<small>Source: NASA — read the original story there.</small>
