NASA Image of the Day

Shimmering ejections emitted by two actively forming stars make up Lynds 483 (L483). High-resolution near-infrared light captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows incredible new detail and structure within these lobes, including asymmetrical lines that appear to run into one another. L483 is 650 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.

A dolphin's dorsal fin cuts through the water in the Launch Complex 39 Area turn basin at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features a sparkling spiral galaxy paired with a prominent star, both in the constellation Virgo. While the galaxy and the star appear to be close to one another, even overlapping, they’re actually a great distance apart.

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, left, Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, second from left, and NASA astronauts Nick Hague, second from right, and Suni Williams, right are seen inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft aboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN shortly after having landed in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Hague, Gorbunov, Williams, and Wilmore are returning from a long-duration science expedition aboard the International Space Station.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 members pose together for a portrait inside the vestibule between the International Space Station and the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov onboard, Friday, March 14, 2025, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission is the tenth crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov launched at 7:03 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy to begin a six-month mission aboard the orbital outpost.

A NASA photographer captured a time-lapse image of the lunar eclipse and blood moon above the Space Environments Complex at NASA’s Glenn Research Center at Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, OH on March 14, 2025.

Uranus was the first planet found with the aid of a telescope. It was discovered on March 13, 1781, by astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was either a comet or a star. Herschel tried unsuccessfully to name his discovery Georgium Sidus after King George III. Instead, the planet was named for Uranus, the Greek god of the sky, as suggested by astronomer Johann Bode.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Dragon spacecraft on top is seen during sunrise on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, ahead of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-10 launch. Crew-10 is the 10th crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Liftoff is targeted for 7:48 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.

NASA Artemis II Crew Public Affairs Officer Courtney Beasley, left, moderates a panel discussion with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, right, as they discuss their mission around the Moon next year aboard Artemis II, the first crewed test flight under NASA's Artemis campaign, Friday, March 7, 2025, at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft took this image of Ceres' south polar region on May 17, 2017, from an altitude of about 26,400 miles (42,500 kilometers).

NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson points to the Expedition 71 patch on her flight suit as she answers a question from students, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Washington. Dyson and fellow crewmates Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps served as part of Expedition 71 aboard the International Space Station.

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured an image of Kachemak Bay’s turbid, cloudy waters on September 20, 2024.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a supernova remnant called the Veil Nebula. This nebula is the remnant of a star roughly 20 times as massive as the Sun that exploded about 10,000 years ago.

Carrying a suite of NASA science and technology, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed at 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, 2025, near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.

In this 1957 photo, George Cooper, a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, stands next to a North American F-100, a supersonic fighter tested by the NACA.

An apprentice at Langley Laboratory (now NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia) inspects wind tunnel components in this image from May 15, 1943.

Creating a golden streak in the night sky, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander (IM-2) soars upward after liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:16 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 26 as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. The IM-2 launch is carrying NASA science, technology demonstrations, and other commercial payloads to Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau to advance our understanding of the Moon and planetary processes, while paving the way for future crewed missions.

The Milky Way appears beyond Earth's horizon in this celestial photograph captured on Jan. 29, 2025, by NASA astronaut Don Pettit using a camera with low light and long duration settings pointed out a window on the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft. The International Space Station was orbiting 265 miles above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile just before sunrise.

NASA’s X-59 lights up the night sky with its unique Mach diamonds, also known as shock diamonds, during maximum afterburner testing at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The test demonstrates the engine’s ability to generate the thrust required for supersonic flight, advancing NASA’s Quesst mission.