NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see an image from the Ingenuity helicopter as it flies over the Martial surface. The is the 54th flight of Ingenuity and occurred just a week ago. The ability to move above the s…

In today's image, we see a number of Perseids from the shower of 2018. The shower occurs when Earth passes through debris left behind by a comet. When these tiny pieces of material strike Earth's atm…

In today's image, we see our Moon and the planet Jupiter as they pass close together in the sky. This is an example of a conjunction when two objects pass close together. However, even though they ap…

In today's image, we see the star forming region known as the Pelican Nebula. The patterns seen in the gas and dust are shaped by the hot, young stars that have formed and will continually change. Ho…

In today's image, we see a part of the remnant of a supernova that was seen here on Earth over a thousand years ago. The material has been expanding outward all that time and still has enough energy …

In today's image, we see the nebula known as the Robin's Egg Nebula which is also known by its catalog designation of NGC 1360. This is an example of a planetary nebula which is the end state of a st…

In today's image, we see crepuscular rays above the rising full moon on August 1 of this year. The next full moon will also occur in August, making it a blue moon - the second time a full moon occurr…

In today's image, we see the trail showing the launch of a Falcon rocked taking a communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit. We also see the descent burns from the return of the two booster …

In today's image, we see the galaxy known as M 82. This is a spiral galaxy an is also classified as a starburst galaxy because it is currently undergoing a burst of star formation. We also see the ga…

In today's image, we see a giant solar prominence as seen along the limb of the Sun. These occur when material from the solar surface is lifted by the Sun's magnetic field and then rains back down on…

In today's image, we see the largest of the two moons of Mars with the planet in the background. Phobos is in a very low and decaying orbit and will eventually end up crashing into the planet and bei…

In today's image, we see a spiral shaped aurora over Iceland. The aurora are caused when charged particles from our Sun strike Earth's magnetic field and are funneled along toward the magnetic poles.…

In today's image, we see an image taken by Neil Armstrong showing Buzz Aldrin setting up an experiment to capture some particles of the solar wind. These particles were returned to Earth along with s…

In today's image, we see a newly formed star system consisting of a pair of young stars which are expelling material in jets. The material in these jets strikes the gas and dust around them at high s…

In today's image, we see a distorted spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Eridanus - the River. The distortion is caused by the gravitational interaction of the galaxy with a smaller, dwarf …

In today's image, we see the Prawn Nebula. This is an example of an emission nebula where gas is excited by ultraviolet radiation from hot, young stars and caused to glow.

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In today's image, we see the star forming region known as the Eagle Nebula with great finger-like formations pointing toward the newly formed cluster of stars. We also find that a good number of thes…

In today's image, we see the trail of a meteor in the sky. A meteor is a small bit of material in space, often left behind by a comet which strikes Earth's atmosphere at a high velocity and is vapori…

In today's image, we see the Antikythera Mechanism. This is believed to be one of the earliest analog computers, dating back 2000 years with the ability to predict the positions of the stars and plan…

In today's image, we see an image of Neil Armstrong on the surface of the Moon. It is a selfie since the image was taken by Armstrong himself. It is an image of his reflection in the visor of fellow …