NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see the Milky Way and a meteor in the sky over Tunisia. The meteor is a part of last year's Perseid meteor shower. This year's Perseids will be this coming weekend, best visible …

In today's image, we see a rendering of our galaxy. We will move through the galaxy, using positions and distances determined by the Gaia satellite which helps give us a 3D view of our galaxy. In man…

In today's image, we see the Glory at the center, the rainbow pattern around the shadow of the person in the image. In addition, we see the Fog Bow, similar to the rainbow, but colors are much less p…

In today's image, we see the planet Mars images over 16 days as it moved across the sky. In the image, we also see the planet Uranus and the Pleiades star cluster.

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In today's image, we see Comet Olbers in the sky. This comet reached its closest approach to the Sun on June 30 and it no heading back to the outer reaches of the solar system. It will return again t…

In today's image, we see spots which have recently been discovered on rocks on Mars. The origin of these spots is being investigated, but it is possible that they could have been cause by ancient lif…

In today's image, we see galaxies interacting. There are two separate images here - A Hubble Space Telescope image in visible light and a James Webb Space Telescope image in infrared light.

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In today's image, we see our Milky Way galaxy as seen over an Australian rock structure known as Uluru. In the image, several emission nebulae and constellations are identified and labeled.

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In today's image, we see a video clip showing a prominence along the limb of the Sun. The plasma of the Sun will follow along the magnetic field lines of the Sun, creating the prominence.

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In today's image, we see Saturn very close to the limb of the Moon. When two objects appear close together in the sky, it is called a conjunction. From parts of Earth, this was actually an occultatio…

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy, NGC 6946. From our perspective, this galaxy is seen face-on allowing us a direct view of its spiral arms and structure.

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In today's image, we see the Iris Nebula. This is an example of a reflection nebula which light from a hot star is scattered off of dust grains around the star. The blue color is because the blue lig…

In today's image, we see our Moon in a greatly exaggerated image. The heights have been stretched out to all ow for differences to be more easily seen. We also see the larger craters and the colors w…

In today's image, we see the Crab Nebula as images in both visible light and x-rays. The visible light gives us an overall view of the nebula while the x-rays help us learn more about the pulsar at t…

In today's image, we see dark nebulae in the constellation of the Chameleon. The dust that makes up these nebula is formed in the outer atmospheres of supergiant stars at the end of their lives and t…

In today's image, we see the King of Wings Hoodoo which is a rock formation where the softer rock below has been worn away, leaving the harder rock hanging out over nothing. Up above in the sky, we w…

In today's image, we see a panoramic image put together from some of the original images taken be Neil Armstrong when Apollo 11 first landed on the Moon 55 years ago today.

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In today's image, we see the Planet Festival on Earth in the foreground. In the sky, we see anti crepuscular rays heading off in to the distance, seeming to converge over the castle on top of the mou…

In today's image, we see a star cloud in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius. This is a gap in the dust in this part of the galaxy, allowing us a view deeper into the galaxy than we can…

In today's image, we see the Villarrica volcano in Chile as it erupts. Earth is one of the few objects with active volcanoes like this. The other active object would be Jupiter's moon, Io. There are …