NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see images of comet Pons-Brooks as observed over nine days in March of this year. We can see the distinct changes that have occurred in the tail even over just a single day - hel…

In today's image, we see images from the total solar eclipse of 2017. We can view the progression as the Moon covers more and more of the Sun until it is completely covered at the center allowing the…

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as M51. In this image, the spiral arms have been digitally modified to unwind them using logarithms. The ordinary spiral arms form a logarithmic spira…

In today's image, we see two images of the corona of the Sun stretched out so they can be easily compared to one another. On the top is an image from the solar eclipse of 2023 and on the bottom an im…

In today's image, we see comet Pons-Brooks at it was seen on March 30. The comet is approaching its perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on April 21. In addition, it could be visible during the …

In today's image, we see the remnant left behind by a star which was observed to explode back in the year 1181. This appears to be an unusual type of nebula classified as a Type Iax which occurs when…

In today's image, we see the corona of our Sun. This is the atmosphere of the Sun and is normally invisible because of the brightness of the Sun itself. However, during an eclipse, our Moon passes in…

In today's image, we see an image from the Event Horizon Telescope which allows astronomers to image the regions around the central black holes of galaxies including the one at the center of our Milk…

In today's image, we see a total eclipse of the Sun observed from an airplane in 2021. Sometimes the eclipses occur at points on Earth that are not easy accessible and this is one way such an eclipse…

In today's image, we see a page of astronomy lecture notes dating back to 1490. The upper diagrams show the explanation of the occurrence of eclipses under the Ptolemaic model of the universe. At the…

In today's image, we see one of the four large moons of Jupiter, known as Europa. This is the smallest of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, but actually has more water than the entire Earth. The Europa …

In today's image, we see the globular star cluster known as Omega Centauri. Globular star clusters exist in the spherical halo of our galaxy. Omega Centauri has an unusual combination of stellar popu…

In today's image, we see a large, dense galaxy cluster known as the Coma Cluster. The cluster contains thousands of galaxies and is so large that it can take light millions of years to travel across …

In today's image, we see the comet known as Pons-Brooks. This comet returns to the inner solar system every 71 years and has been observed since the 14th century. It is currently visible with the aid…

In today's image, we see a video where the tones the sound are used to represent different colors in the image. The red colors are represented by the lower tones while the blue is represented by the …

In today's image, we see the shadow of our Moon as cast on the Earth during the total solar eclipse from 1999. The very center region of this shadow will be the area that sees a total solar eclipse w…

In today's image, we see the region around the landing site of the fictional Ares 3 craft which was the basis of the novel: The Martian in which an astronaut is stranded on the surface of Mars. The i…

In today's image, we see the planet Mars with its moon, Phobos just appearing in multiple images off the left-hand side. Phobos is an unusual moon in that it orbits so close to Mars that it would act…

In today's image, we see the Leo Triplet - a group of spiral galaxies in the direction of the constellation of Leo the lion. The galaxies appear relatively close to one another in the sky, spanning a…

In today's image, we see two galaxy which have recently interacted. We can see how the one galaxy contains material that has been distorted as the gravitational fields of the two galaxies interacted.…