NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see a set of images taken shortly after sunset. We are looking in the direction opposite to the setting Sun. We see the various shades the sky goes through as night falls in each…

In today's image, we see the supernova remnant known as Simeis 147 and also known sometimes as the Spaghetti Nebula. A remnant like this is left behind when a massive star reached the end of its life…

In today's image, we see the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos as one passes in front of the other causing an eclipse. An eclipse can occur anywhere where one object passes in front of another. Ho…

In today's image, we see an aurora which may resemble the shape of a phoenix rising up over the horizon. The patterns are random, but our minds try to put some kind of order to the randomness which a…

In today's image, we see an image of a portion of the Moon taken a couple of days ago by the Odysseus craft shortly before it landed near the lunar South Pole. This was the first US craft to land on …

In today's image, we see what is known as the Pencil Nebula. This is a portion of the Veil Supernova remnant, the material left behind by a star seen so explode here on Earth over 10,000 years ago. T…

In today's image, we see galaxies in the direction of the handle of the Big Dipper. This includes the spiral galaxy known as M106 which we see to the left side of our image.

My podcasts are available…

In today's image, we see the Seagull Nebula. This is an example of an emission nebula showing the red glow of hydrogen gas which is caused by nearby stars emitting ultraviolet light which is energeti…

In today's image, we see galaxies in the process of collision. When galaxies collide, the stars pass right by one another while the larger gas clouds will collide together and increase star formation…

In today's image, we see a video clip showing 11 days of images from the Parker Solar Probe. This craft, currently in orbit around the Sun, passes closer to the Sun with each orbit giving us a better…

In today's image, we see an example of a ring galaxy. We see two distinct parts of the galaxy which appear to be separated by a gap. The underlying cause as to why a ring galaxy forms is unknown. How…

In today's image, we see a meteor that happened to occur at the time of the photograph. This is a small bit of material - a dust grain - that is being vaporized in Earth's upper atmosphere. In this c…

In today's image, we see the comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. The comet is currently heading to the inner solar system and will reach its closest approach to the Sun on April 21. This is just a couple of weeks…

In today's image, we see an example of a spiral galaxy. We can see many of the distinct features of star formation here including the dark dusty regions, the blue color of the spiral arms from the li…

In today's image, we see the region around the Rosette Nebula. This is a region of star formation and we see the red glow caused by the excitation of hydrogen gas by the hot, young stars that have fo…

In today's image, we see the full moon from this past month. The January full moon is often called the Wolf Moon. One full moon generally occurs each month - this is where our concept of a month come…

In today's image, we see two examples of planetary nebulae in the direction of the constellation of Cassiopeia. A planetary nebula is the end state of a star much like our own Sun. It has exhausted t…

In today's image, we see the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from 2001. We note how the exhaust behind the shuttle changes color. From the lower portion, the plume is at a level where the Sun ha…

In today's image, we see part of the Martian surface as imaged from the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. This is the result of the 72nd and final mission of the helicopter over the past three years. Con…

In today's image, we see the Rosette Nebula. This is an example of an emission nebula that would normally glow red because of the emission of hydrogen gas. However, this is a narrowband image which l…