NASA Image of the Day

A U.S. Marine helicopter recovery team hoists astronaut Alan Shepard from his Mercury spacecraft after a successful flight and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

On May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 15-minute suborbital flight, becoming America's first astronaut. In this image, he is shown being hoisted aboard a U.S. Marine helicopter after splashdown. The flight carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles.

When the first Star Wars movie was released in 1977, it featured the now-iconic two-sun, “circumbinary” planet Tatooine.

Swati Mohan is currently the Mars 2020 Guidance, Navigation, and Controls Operations Lead, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The interaction of two doomed stars has created this spectacular ring adorned with bright clumps of gas ­– a diamond necklace of cosmic proportions.

After its journey from NASA’s Stennis Space Center aboard the Pegasus barge, the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on April 27, 2021.

Astronauts on the space station recently enjoyed a fresh supply of leafy greens, thanks in large part to the efforts of astronaut Michael Hopkins.

This image from April 24, 2021, shows the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour as it approached the International Space Station.

Scientists have found fragments of titanium blasting out of a famous supernova.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is seen to the right of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington as it is launches the Crew-2 mission.

​Sunset at Gobabeb, Namibia.

In this image that astronaut Scott Kelly posted to Twitter on Aug. 9, 2015 during his #YearInSpace captures all the the places humans dwell.

Crew-2 are seen as they prepare to depart for Launch Complex 39A during a dress rehearsal on Sunday, April 18, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Spectacular jets are powered by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole in the core of the elliptical galaxy Hercules A.

The night lights of Tokyo, Japan, are pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 261 miles above the island nation.

This image, taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in 2012, shows an extraordinary outburst from a black hole.

In April 2019, ablack hole and its shadow were captured in an image for the first time.

When space shuttle Columbia took to the skies, a new era of spaceflight took wing.

Mary W. Jackson (second from left) seen in 1984 Student Symposium at Langley Research Center.

A sea of dark dunes, sculpted by the wind into long lines, surrounds Mars' northern polar cap and covers an area as big as Texas.