NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see a deep exposure showing the galactic cirrus, thin dust clouds located in the direction of the north and south galactic poles.

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In today's image, we see the galaxy known as M64 or the Black Eye Galaxy for its distinct appearance. This is an example of a spiral galaxy, much like our own Milky Way with the unusual property that…

In today's image, we see the  Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft as it is launched on its way to the Moon. When it arrives in late August it will be landing a rover on the Moon's surface to explore the south p…

In today's image, we see the La Palma observatory in the Canary Islands. Above in the sky, we see a number of constellations as well as our Milky Way galaxy. Around it are a number of nebulae within …

In today's image, we see the star known as CW Leonis. This is an example of a carbon star which is a star that has become enriched in carbon relative to a star like our Sun. Some of this material get…

In today's image, we see our Milky Way galaxy as seen over the Alps. The Milky Way galaxy is our own galaxy as we see it from within. In addition, we see a meteor that made an appearance as the image…

In today's image, we see an image released a year ago from the James Webb Space Telescope. This is a deep field image, looking at what might be considered a relatively empty region of space to view d…

In today's image, we see a recently discovered comet as it made its way toward perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on July 1. In mid-August, it will make its closest approach to Earth but will s…

In today's image, we see the nearby star forming region and molecular cloud known as the Rho Ophiuchi region. This is only about 400 light years away, much closer than the often studied Orion Molecul…

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy NGC 1398. This is an example of a ring galaxy which also has a bar across its center. The ring may have been caused by gravitational interaction with anothe…

In today's image, we see the sunspots that have been visible on the face of the Sun for the first six months of this year. You will see multiple images of each sunspot as they are tracked from right …

In today's image, we see the star forming region NGC 6559. Here we see the three types of nebulae associated with star formation - Dark, dusty nebulae, reed emission nebulae, and blue reflection nebu…

In today's image, we see the star known as Eta Carinae. This is called a doomed star because it is the type of star the will end its life in a supernova explosion. When this will happen is a good que…

In today's image, we see Stickney crater on Phobos, one of the two small moons of Mars. The crater itself is nearly half the size of the moon, meaning that it nearly shattered the moon when this impa…

In today's image, we see the double open star cluster in the constellation of Perseus known as h & χ Persei. This is a young open cluster only about 13 million years old - far younger then the five b…

In today's image, we see the Moon behind a fireworks display from July 4 of this year. The Moon is the first supermoon of the year. A supermoon will occur when the full moon occurs when the Moon is a…

In today's image, we see a view of a slice of the universe from data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey over the past two decades. The inner portion are galaxies while the outer (more distant)…

In today's image, we see the planet Venus as imaged from the Akatsuki spacecraft which entered Venus' orbit in 2015 after an extended journey around the inner solar system after the first attempted o…

In today's image, we see the planet Venus as imaged from the Akatsuki spacecraft which entered Venus' orbit in 2015 after an extended journey around the inner solar system after the first attempted o…

In today's image, we see an image from Antarctica which shows our Milky Way galaxy as well as the two Magellanic Clouds, We also see the aurora, in the case Aurora Australis or the Southern Lights.

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