Astronomy Images

“Rise,” the Artemis II zero gravity indicator, is seen sitting on the dais as the Artemis II astronauts speak with congressional staff, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Washington. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently took a self-portrait against a sweeping backdrop of ancient Martian terrain at a location the science team calls “Lac de Charmes.” Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir poses with an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit during an official portrait session at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

This celestial image captured from a window on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station highlights the Milky Way rising above Earth's atmospheric glow. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

A sliver of the edge of Earth is brightly illuminated against the vast darkness of space. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

A newly discovered object may be a key to unlocking the true nature of a mysterious class of sources that astronomers have found in the early universe in recent years. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

America’s first human spaceflight begins as the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) space vehicle, with astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. aboard, launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 5, 1961. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the glittering spiral galaxy NGC 3137, located 53 million light-years away in the constellation Antlia (the Air Pump). Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

Nasdaq Chair and Chief Executive Officer Adena T. Friedman, left, and NASA’s Artemis II crew ring the closing bell of the Nasdaq market session, Thursday, April 30, 2026. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) core stage for the Artemis III mission moves into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

The barred spiral galaxy IC 486 glows with a soft, ethereal light in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

Expedition 74 flight engineers Chris Williams of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency work together in the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

The X-59’s tail and jet engine feature a new marking — a Freedom 250 logo celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

NASA celebrates Hubble’s 36th anniversary with a new image of the Trifid Nebula, a star-forming region it first captured in 1997. The telescope leveraged almost its full operational lifetime to show us changes in the nebula on human time scales with an improved camera. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day

Scientists have found that young stellar cousins of our Sun are calming down and dimming more quickly in their X-ray output than previously thought, according to a study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Courtesy of NASA Image of the Day