NASA Image of the Day

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 4709 located around 240 million light-years away in the southern constellation Telescopium. Hubble beautifully captures its faint halo and swirling disk filled with stars and dust bands.

"I would say family and part of that 'first-gen experience' [shaped me]...It shaped me to be a hard worker and to aspire to large things because not only was it my goal at this point, but it was also my parents' aspiration." – Zaida Hernandez, Engineer, Lunar Architecture Team, NASA's Johnson Space Center

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station shot this photo of peak fall colors around Ottawa, the capital of Canada. West of downtown Ottawa lies Gatineau Park, where sugar maple leaves turn orange-red and hickories turn golden-bronze during the season, known regionally as “the Fall Rhapsody.”

The waxing gibbous Moon is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 265 miles above the U.S. state of Minnesota on Dec. 17, 2021.

NASA's Europa Clipper is seen here on Aug. 21, 2024, in a clean room at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The photo was taken as engineers and technicians deployed and tested the spacecraft's giant solar arrays, each of which measures about 46.5 feet (14.2 meters) long and about 13.5 feet (4.1 meters) high.

Chile pepper plants growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat aboard the International Space Station bore fruit in the late summer and fall of 2021. Overcoming the challenges of growing fruit in microgravity is important to NASA for long-duration missions during which crew members will need good sources of Vitamin C to supplement their diets.

NGC 1333 is a nearby star-forming region in the Perseus constellation. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope surveyed a large portion of NGC 1333, identifying planetary objects using the observatory’s Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph.

iss071e522460 (Aug. 20, 2024) --- The dome-shaped Brandburg Massif, near the Atlantic coast of central Namibia, containing Brandberg Mountain, the African nation's highest peak and ancient rock paintings going back at least 2,000 years, is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 261 miles above.

Tiny satellites, also known as CubeSats, are pictured after being deployed into Earth orbit from a small satellite orbital deployer on the outside of the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module.

Construction of the world’s largest wind tunnel and its original 40- by 80-foot test section. A later expansion created an additional 80- by 120-foot test section. A Navy blimp, which would have been based at Hangars 2 and 3 at Moffett Field, patrols in the background.

In this image, PPE engineers successfully tested the integration of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s thruster with Maxar’s power procession unit and Xenon Flow Controller.

A vivid aurora streams over the Earth as the International Space Station orbited 273 miles above the southern Indian Ocean in between Australia and Antarctica.

NASA T-38s fly in formation above the Space Launch System rocket on Launch Pad 39B.

Dense bands of dust streamed offshore from southern Morocco in summer 2024. The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the Suomi NPP satellite acquired this image of a plume of Saharan dust as winds lofted it over the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 24, 2024.

Backdropped against the blue and white Earth 130 nautical miles below, astronaut Mark C. Lee tests the new Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) system on Sept. 16, 1994.

The Pegasus Dwarf spheroidal galaxy, also known as Andromeda VI, is one of at least 13 dwarf galaxies that orbit the Andromeda galaxy.

When this picture was taken in July 1994, Dr. Irene Duhart Long was director of the Biomedical Operations and Research Office at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She was responsible for the program management of the center's aerospace and occupational medicine, life sciences research, environmental health programs, and the operations management of the life sciences support facilities. Dr. Long also was responsible for providing the coordinating medical, environmental monitoring and environmental health support to launch and landing activities and day-to-day institutional functions.

The Dash 7 that will be modified into a hybrid electric research vehicle under NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project on display with its new livery for the first time. In front of the plane is an electric powertrain that magniX will integrate into the current aircraft to build a hybrid electric propulsion system.