New month = new night sky sights 🔭⁣ ⁣ In August, a few planets will make an appearance:⁣ ⁣ - Mars will be visible in the early evening sky at about 60% brightness⁣ - Saturn rises by about 10 p.m.⁣ - Jupiter and Venus appear at their closest on the 11th and 12th⁣ ⁣ The Perseids, one of the biggest annual meteor showers, peak on the night of Aug. 12-13 — but the Moon will be nearly full, so viewing won't be great. You'll only be able to see the brightest meteors.⁣ ⁣ To make up for that, how about a chance to see the future of our Sun? August is a great time to spot one of the easiest-to-observe nebulas in the sky, the Dumbbell Nebula. It'll be high overhead on August nights. It's a type of nebula called a "planetary nebula."⁣ ⁣ A nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust in space, and planetary nebulas are produced by stars like our Sun when they become old and nuclear fusion ceases inside them. This won't be happening any time soon for us – that future is about 5 billion years away ...