NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see one of the brightest globular star clusters in our galaxy, known as 47 Tuc. Globular star clusters are some of the oldest parts of our galaxy and give us a glimpse into the e…

In today's image, we see two galaxies in the process of colliding and merging together. Because of the great sizes and distances involved, the entire process can take billions of years. However, it i…

In today's image, we see two views of a spiral galaxy from two different telescopes. We see the Hubble image in ultraviolet light and the James Webb Space Telescope image taken in the infrared. A com…

In today's image, we see the central portions of the Carina Nebula. This includes the star Eta Carinae which was one of the brightest stars in the sky a couple of hundred years ago. It has since fade…

In today's image, we see an image of the Cone Nebula. This is a region of star formation where this cone is a remaining dense area where stars continue to form. The less dense areas around this have …

In today's image, we see an image taken by the astronauts from the Apollo 14 mission from February of 1971. This was toward the end of the mission as they were preparing to leave the Moon's surface t…

In today's image, we see the star forming region known as NGC 1893. The "tadpoles" are regions where stars are currently trying to form. However, energy from the stars that have previously formed in …

In today's image, we see the barred spiral galaxy known by its catalog designation of NGC 1365. The "island universe" is another galaxy, similar to our own Milky Way but about sixty million light yea…

In today's image, we see the area around the constellation of Orion in the sky. This image, taken with just a camera, When an extended exposure like this is taken, more detail can be seen that would …

In today's image, we see the SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) craft which recently dropped off two small roves on the Moon for future exploration. The main craft itself did not land as expe…

In today's image, we see the Pleiades Star Cluster. This is a prominent star cluster located in the constellation of Taurus. Currently, a dust cloud is passing through the cluster, causing the blue c…

In today's image, we see the dwarf planet Pluto as imaged by the New Horizons spacecraft back in 2015. The image has been processed to reveal what Pluto would look like if we were able to see it dire…

In today's image, we see the full moon rising beyond the telescopes in the mountains of Chile is the Las Campanas observatory. The full moon in January is known as the Wolf Moon, which is what we see…

In today's image, we see the star known as Epsilon Tauri. This relatively nearby star is known to have a planet orbiting it which is larger than Jupiter. The planet orbits must faster that Jupiter do…

In today's image, we see the sky above the city of Jyväskylä in Finland. The Pilars of light in the sky that are seen here are from street lights in the neighborhood.When ice crystals are positioned …

In today's image, we see our Earth and Moon as images from the Artemis I mission from 2022. This was a craft sent out beyond the Moon and then returned to Earth. Artemis II, currently planned for lat…

In today's image, we see a part of the sky near the constellations of Orion and Taurus. This deep image, incorporating over 800 hours' worth of exposure allows us to see many of the nebulae in this r…

In today's image, we see the first quarter moon above a mountain. Here we can see the similar shadows of both objects. We note that the right side is illuminated while the left side is dark. This is …

In today's image, we see massive snow drifts from a storm that struck Michigan's Upper Peninsula 86 years ago this week. This is not the overall level of snow that fell, but drifts cause by high wind…

In today's image, we see the boost back burn of the side boosters of a Falcon Heavy rocket as they returned to Earth on December 28 of last year. The boosters are then refueled and used for future mi…