NASA Image of the Day

NASA’s X-59 at Sunrise (Mo, 25 Aug 2025)
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft sits on the ramp at sunrise before ground tests at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, on July 18, 2025. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission to demonstrate quiet supersonic flight.
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Epic Research Can Help Mars Missions (Fri, 22 Aug 2025)
The parachute of the Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy test experiment deploys following an air launch from an Alta X drone on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
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Cities by the Bay (Thu, 21 Aug 2025)
California's San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by the cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, and their suburbs, is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 260 miles above the Golden State on Aug. 3, 2025.
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Viking 1 Begins Journey to Mars (Wed, 20 Aug 2025)
Viking 1 was launched by a Titan-Centaur rocket from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:22 p.m. EDT on Aug. 20, 1975, to begin a half-billion mile, 11-month journey through space to explore Mars. The 4-ton spacecraft went into orbit around the red planet in mid-1976 and landed on Mars on July 20, 1976.
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Moonlight and Our Atmosphere (Tue, 19 Aug 2025)
The Moon's light is refracted by Earth's atmosphere, giving it a spheroid shape in this April 13, 2025, photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited into a sunset 264 miles above the border between Bolivia and Brazil in South America.
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Artemis II Crew Practices Night Launch Scenario (Mon, 18 Aug 2025)
NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, and Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot, walk on the crew access arm of the mobile launcher in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025.
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Spacewalk Pop-Up (Fri, 15 Aug 2025)
Former NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough is photographed during a spacewalk in January 2017.
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Say Cheese! (Thu, 14 Aug 2025)
Eleven International Space Station crew members gather inside the International Space Station's Unity module for a portrait on Aug. 3, 2025.
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Alligator Goes for a Swim (Wed, 13 Aug 2025)
An alligator moves through a brackish waterway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The center shares space with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. More than 330 native and migratory bird species, 25 mammals, 117 fishes and 65 amphibians and reptiles call NASA Kennedy and the wildlife refuge home.
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Hubble Captures a Tarantula (Tue, 12 Aug 2025)
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a portion of the Tarantula Nebula.
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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 Splashes Down in Pacific Ocean (Mon, 11 Aug 2025)
Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, left, NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi are seen inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft aboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON shortly after having landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Calif., Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov returned after 147 days in space as part of Expedition 73 aboard the International Space Station.
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Rare Type of Black Hole Snacks on Star (Fri, 08 Aug 2025)
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to identify a new possible example of a rare class of black holes. Called NGC 6099 HLX-1, this bright X-ray source seems to reside in a compact star cluster in a giant elliptical galaxy.
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NASA’s Artemis II Crew Trains in Orion (Thu, 07 Aug 2025)
The Artemis II crew (from left to right) CSA (Canadian Space Agency) Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; Christina Koch, mission specialist; Victor Glover, pilot; and Reid Wiseman, commander, don their Orion Crew Survival System Suits for a multi-day crew module training beginning Thursday, July 31, 2025, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Behind the crew, wearing clean room apparel, are members of the Artemis II closeout crew.
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Curiosity Looks Back Toward Its Landing Site (Wed, 06 Aug 2025)
This view of tracks trailing NASA's Curiosity rover was captured July 26, 2025, as the rover simultaneously relayed data to a Mars orbiter.
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Second Lady Usha Vance, NASA Astronaut Suni Williams Celebrate Reading (Tue, 05 Aug 2025)
Second Lady Usha Vance hosted a special Summer Reading Challenge event at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Aug. 4, 2025. She was joined by NASA astronaut Suni Williams to read a space-themed book to children in grades K-8 as part of her initiative to promote literacy.
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Perseids Meteor Shower (Mon, 04 Aug 2025)
In this 30 second exposure photograph, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.
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Crew-11 Launches to International Space Station (Fri, 01 Aug 2025)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov aboard, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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Sunrise on Crew-11 Launch Attempt (Thu, 31 Jul 2025)
A NASA photographer captured the sunrise on July 31, 2025, ahead of NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 launch attempt. The Crew-11 mission will send NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9.
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Looking Forward to the Moon (Wed, 30 Jul 2025)
NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems’ Program Manager Shawn Quinn captured this image of the Hadley–Apennine region of the moon including the Apollo 15 landing site (very near the edge of the shadow of one of the lunar mountains in the area).
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NASA Drop Test Supports Safer Air Taxi Designs (Tue, 29 Jul 2025)
An aircraft body modeled after an air taxi with weighted test dummies inside is being prepared for a drop test by researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The test was completed June 26 at Langley’s Landing and Impact Research Facility. The aircraft was dropped from a tall steel structure, known as a gantry, after being hoisted about 35 feet in the air by cables. NASA researchers are investigating aircraft materials that best absorb impact forces in a crash.
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Hubble Spies Swirling Spiral (Mon, 28 Jul 2025)
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy NGC 3285B, a member of the Hydra I cluster of galaxies.
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25th Anniversary Cupola Photo (Fri, 25 Jul 2025)
The 25th anniversary logo is visible in the cupola of the space station in this July 17, 2025, image. The central astronaut figure is representative of all those who have lived and worked aboard the station during the 25 years of continuous human presence. In the dark sky of space surrounding the astronaut are 15 stars, which symbolize the 15 partner nations that support the orbiting laboratory.
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First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral (Thu, 24 Jul 2025)
The Bumper V-2 launches from Cape Canaveral in this July 24, 1950, photo.
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NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim, Axiom Mission 4 Commander Peggy Whitson Conduct Research in Space (Wed, 23 Jul 2025)
Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Jonny Kim from NASA and Axiom Mission 4 Commander Peggy Whitson work together inside the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory module setting up research hardware to culture patient-derived cancer cells, model their growth in microgravity, and test a state-of-the-art fluorescence microscope.
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NASA’s X-59 Makes a Move (Tue, 22 Jul 2025)
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft taxis across the runway during a low-speed taxi test at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, on July 10, 2025. The test marks the start of taxi tests and the last series of ground tests before first flight.
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The Day Earth Smiled (Mon, 21 Jul 2025)
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings, and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.
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Hubble Snaps Galaxy Cluster’s Portrait (Fri, 18 Jul 2025)
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the galaxy cluster Abell 209.
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Space Station Crew Celebrates Milestone (Thu, 17 Jul 2025)
NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Anne McClain shows off a hamburger-shaped cake to celebrate 200 cumulative days in space for JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi (out of frame) since his first spaceflight as an Expedition 48-49 Flight Engineer in 2016.
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Aurora Australis (Wed, 16 Jul 2025)
The aurora australis arcs above a partly cloudy Indian Ocean in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles above in between Australia and Antarctica on June 12, 2025.
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Hubble Observations Give “Missing” Globular Cluster Time to Shine (Tue, 15 Jul 2025)
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a dense and dazzling array of blazing stars that form globular cluster ESO 591-12.
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10 Years Ago: NASA’s New Horizons Captures Pluto’s Heart (Mon, 14 Jul 2025)
This is the most accurate natural color image of Pluto taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.
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Putting the X-59 to the Test (Fri, 11 Jul 2025)
Researchers from NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently tested a scale model of the X-59 experimental aircraft in a supersonic wind tunnel located in Chofu, Japan, to assess the noise audible underneath the aircraft. The test was an important milestone for NASA’s one-of-a-kind X-59, which is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without causing a loud sonic boom.
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Inspects Cat’s Paw (Thu, 10 Jul 2025)
To celebrate its third year of revealing stunning scenes of the cosmos in infrared light, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has “clawed” back the thick, dusty layers of a section within the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334).
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Anatomy of a Space Shuttle (Wed, 09 Jul 2025)
This illustration shows the parts of a space shuttle orbiter. About the same size and weight as a DC-9 aircraft, the orbiter contains the pressurized crew compartment (which can normally carry up to seven crew members), the cargo bay, and the three main engines mounted on its aft end.
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Stellar Duo (Tue, 08 Jul 2025)
The bright variable star V 372 Orionis takes center stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which has also captured a smaller companion star in the upper left of this image. Both stars lie in the Orion Nebula, a colossal region of star formation roughly 1450 light years from Earth.
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