NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see the spectrum of the Sun. When light is passed through a prism or similar device, it is split into its component colors. The lines we see are from different elements allowing …

In today's image, we see the planet Mars and the Beehive Cluster. The Beehive is an open cluster of stars located in the constellation of Cancer. Mars is prominent in the evening sky this month after…

In today's image, we see Pandora's Cluster of galaxies. This is a massive closure resulting from the merger of three galaxy clusters. Much of the mass of this, and other clusters, is in the form of d…

In today's image, we see part of an emission region where stars are currently being formed. The Elephant's Trunk Nebula to the left and the Caravan below that and to the right. The red glow is due to…

In today's image, we see the galaxy known as M94. This is an example of a ring galaxy which is a relatively unusual type of galaxy. While we know of a tremendous number of galaxy's, the number of rin…

In today's image, we see an animation of a star consuming one of its planets. The actual event was detected in 2020. And was the first detection of such an event even though we understood that this k…

In today's image, we see the Triffid Nebula, also known as M20. The three dust lanes across the center of the nebula give it its name. In this we are seeing a region off star formation with the red g…

In today's image, we see an image from perhaps the late 1800s showing a person looking out beyond our known universe at the time consisting of Earth, the Sun, Moon, and sphere of the stars. The perso…

In today's image, we see Charon, the largest of the moon of the dwarf planet Pluto. Charon was discovered in 1978 and this discovery photo is seen in the upper left. The main image shows far more det…

In today's image, we see the prominent spiral galaxy known as Messier 101. We see the galaxy face-on looking down on its spiral structure with the great swirling spiral arms and their blue star cloud…

In today's image, we see the supernova remnant known as Cassiopeia A. This would have been seen to explode from Earth back in the later 1600. However, extensive obscuration kept astronomers from view…

In today's image, we see a simulation showing the formation of a galaxy disk over billions of years compressed down into about 2 minutes. Galaxy evolution takes such a long time that there is no way …

In today's image, we see the Dumbbell Nebula, also known as M27. This is an example of a planetary nebula which is the end state of a star much like our own Sun. The outer layers have been expelled o…

In today's image, we see bioluminescent plankton giving off light in the waves off an island in the Indian Ocean. In the sky, we see the Milky Way as well as a number of emission nebulae and the aste…

In today's image, we see the asteroid Ida with its moon, Dactyl. This moon was discovered in 1993 when the Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid on its way to Jupiter and was able in discover the m…

In today's image, we see Neptune and its large moon Triton as timed by the Voyager 2 spacecraft back in 1989. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited the outermost planet in the solar system…

In today's image, we see part of the Virgo galaxy cluster including the giant elliptical galaxy M87 which is near the lower part of the image. We also see Markarian's Chain toward the left side of th…

In today's image, we see the Cat's Eye Nebula, an example of a planetary nebula which is the end state of a star much like our own Sun. In this deep image, we see outer layers that were expelled outw…

In today's image, we see Lick Observatory, where the moon Amalthea was discovered visually (just by looking through the telescope, not using any photographic means.) This was the last moon in the sol…

In today's image, we see swirling clouds in the atmosphere of Jupiter as imaged by the Juno spacecraft back in August of 2020. Studies of storms in Jupiter's atmosphere can give us a betting insight …