NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see the nebula known as the Ghost Nebula. Here we see a dusty area of space in the direction of the constellation of Cepheus. The darker dusty area are where stars are continuing…

In today's image, we see a partial eclipse of the Moon that just occurred with the full moon. A lunar eclipse occurs when our Moon passes into Earth's shadow and part of the Moon does not receive dir…

In today's image, we see the region around the bright star Gamma Cas, one of the brighter stars in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The red glow in an emission nebula caused by emission from hydrogen…

In today's image, we see Comet Encke - a periodic comet that returns to the inner solar system every 3.3 years and made its closest approach to the Sun just a few days ago. On the other side of the i…

In today's image, we see two Orionid meteors in the sky. The Orionid meteor shower is one of two that occurs each year that is associated with debris left behind by Halley's Comet. The cluster of sta…

In today's image, we see a video watching the Sun set below the horizon. We will note the distortions around the limb of the Sun caused by Earth's atmosphere. We will also note the green (and blue) c…

In today's image, we see a pair of galaxies in the process of merging - a process which can take a billion years or more. Galaxy mergers are quire common and are how galaxies have grown in size from …

In today's image, we see an image of the moon of Jupiter known as Io as taken recently by the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. Io is the most volcanically active object in our solar system because o…

In today's image, we see an aurora over Northern Canada in this image taken a decade ago. Perhaps you will see the apparition of a ghostly figure in the aurora as your mind try to put some order to t…

In today's image, we see all of the quarter moon of the year 2022. These include both the first quarter moons and third quarter moons of the year. We can tell this by the side that it's illuminated. …

In today's image, we see a number of galaxies which are at varying distances from Earth. In addition, we see Comet Lemmon which was recently discovered and which will be making its closest approaches…

In today's image, we see a sunrise image and, shortly thereafter, an eclipse of the Sun. We see multiple images of the Sun taken every two minutes to show the progression of the eclipse.

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In today's image, we see a part of the Veil Nebula which is the remnant left behind by a star that would have been seen from Earth to have exploded 15,000 years ago in the constellation of Cygnus. Th…

In today's image, we see an image taken by the ALMA array of radio telescopes in Chile. The newly formed star at the center has a ring of planet forming material around it. Just inside the ring is a …

In today's image, we see an image of the annular solar eclipse from this past Saturday with two people silhouetted in the foreground. The annular eclipse was visible from parts of North and South Ame…

In today's image, we see multiple images of the Sun on the ground created by pinhole lenses from the leaves of a tree. Here we see the crescent shape of the nearly totally eclipsed Sun from the eclip…

In today's image, we see a halo around the Sun which is caused by ice crystals in cirrus clouds in Earth's atmosphere. Also today will be an annular solar eclipse which will be visible over parts of …

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as M33 or the Triangulum Galaxy. This is one of the three large spiral galaxies in our Local Group of galaxies. The image is made to emphasize the red…

In today's image, we see the star known as Mu Cephei. This is a red supergiant star which, if placed at the location of our Sun, would extend out past the planet Jupiter in our solar system. The star…

In today's image, we see a spiral galaxy with a recently discovered supernova marked. This is an example of what is called a type II supernova - a very massive star which has reached the end of its l…