Astronomy Picture of the Day

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

NASA's featured image of our universe, updated daily — the most recent picks.

Fri, Jun 26, 2026

Milky Way Urban Style

In a cosmic vista you can never see, the Milky Way arcs through the night above Seoul, South Korea. Remarkably, this urban night skyscape reveals our galaxy's faintly luminous central region and dark obscuring dust clouds in spite of the brilliant city lights. To overcome the extreme light pollution of the metropolitan area and record faint cosmic details, an infrared filter was used to capture the night scene in a single exposure. While the filter transmits predominately infrared light, it still passes some visible light to give the scene a natural appearance. The view is from Seoul's Ttukseom Hangang Park, with the Han River and a well lit railway bridge across the foreground. The 123 story Lotte World Tower looms in the distance, the tallest building in South Korea.

Thu, Jun 25, 2026

Anticrepuscular Rays over Sicily

The Sun has just set... in the opposite side of the sky. Pictured here are anticrepuscular rays apparently converging in the east in this image of the limestone plateau in the heart of the Hyblaean Mountains of southeastern Sicily, in Italy. How were these anticrepuscular rays formed, if the Sun wasn't there? After the Sun set (in the west, as usual) its light still illuminated a cloud higher up in the sky. Partially blocked by the cloud, the sunlight produced patterns of light and shadow, crossing the sky in parallel lines. Perspective makes it look like they converge in the east, in the same way that train tracks appear to meet in the distance. This effect can also happen at sunrise, only the directions are exchanged. In rare cases, both crepuscular and anticrepuscular rays can be seen at the same time.

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Wed, Jun 24, 2026

SDO Observes a Coronal Mass Ejection

Why does the Sun throw stuff at us? The Sun’s surface is a churning soup of energetic electrons and ions called plasma. The motion of those charged particles creates magnetic field loops that are larger than the Earth. These loops twist, turn, and trap plasma. The featured time-lapse, taken over 2 hours on April 24th, 2026 by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows what happens when those magnetic fields become too stressed: they snap and expel billions of tons (trillions of kilograms) of plasma into space at millions of miles (or kilometers) per hour in what is called a coronal mass ejection (CME). The Sun releases a few CMEs each day when it is at the peak of its activity cycle, which passed in 2025. Some of these eruptions hit Earth and can disrupt power grids, disable satellites, and endanger astronauts, which is why space weather monitoring is so important.

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Tue, Jun 23, 2026

Flying Past Neptune's Moon Triton

What would it look like to fly past Triton, the largest moon of planet Neptune? Only one spacecraft has ever done this -- and the images of this dramatic encounter have been gathered into a video. In 1989, the Voyager 2 robotic spacecraft shot through the Neptune system with cameras blazing. Triton is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon but has ice volcanoes and a surface rich in frozen nitrogen. The first sequence in the video shows Voyager's approach to Triton, which, with the exception of an overall false green tint, appears in approximately true color. The mysterious cantaloupe terrain seen under the spacecraft soon changed from light to dark, with the terminator of night crossing underneath. After closest approach, Voyager pivoted to see the departing moon, now visible as a diminishing crescent. In 2015, the robotic New Horizons spacecraft famously flew past Pluto, an orb of similar size to Triton. Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

Mon, Jun 22, 2026

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula

Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The first hint of our Sun's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, one of the brightest planetary nebulas on the sky and visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula). It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, featured here in colors enhanced by red for hydrogen and blue for oxygen. We now know that in about 6 billion years, our Sun will shed its outer gases into a planetary nebula like M27, while its remaining center will become an X-ray hot white dwarf star. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science, though. Even today, many things remain mysterious about planetary nebulas, including how their intricate shapes are created.

Sun, Jun 21, 2026

Keogram: The Sky in 2025

What if you could see the entire sky -- all at once -- for an entire year? That, very nearly, is what is pictured here. Every 15 seconds during 2025, an all-sky camera took an image of the sky over the Netherlands. Central columns from these images were then aligned and combined to create the featured keogram, with January at the top, December at the bottom, and the middle of the night running vertically just left of center. What do we see? Most obviously, the daytime sky is mostly blue, while the nighttime sky is mostly black. The twelve light bands crossing the night sky are caused by the glow of the Moon. The thinnest part of the black hourglass shape occurs during the summer solstice, like today, when days are the longest, while the thickest part occurs at the winter solstice. Equinoxes can also be located in the keogram, for example the northern-spring equinox from one year ago is about three-quarters of the way up.

Sat, Jun 20, 2026

Daytime Moon Meets Evening Star

Venus is now appearing on the celestial stage as Earth's brilliant evening star, performing with the Moon, other wandering planets, and bright stars in western skies. For evening sky gazers on June 17, the celestial beacon rose after sunset close by a young, slender, crescent Moon. But from some locations the Moon could be seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. And from a backyard observatory in southern British Columbia, Canada, the lunar occultation was played out in daylight. This stunning telescopic snapshot captured a scene in dramatically cloudy skies, following Venus' hour long disappearance, as the evening star emerged beyond the bright lunar limb.

Fri, Jun 19, 2026

Starry Night II

Does this scene look familiar? It is a modern recreation of the famous painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Both the image and the painting depict a tall tree on the left, a crescent moon on the upper right, the planet Venus just to the right of the tree, a foreground horizon rising from left to right, and clouds above the horizon. Differences include that the photograph was taken in mid-April earlier this year in Cascavel, Brazil, while the painting was composed in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in 1889. The original Starry Night is considered by many to be one of the three most famous paintings in the world today and a statement about the wonders of the night sky. Today is (roughly) the anniversary of the morning that van Gogh saw the sky that he later painted in his version of Starry Night. Night Sky Jigsaw: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day

Thu, Jun 18, 2026

Possible Supernova Remnant in Galactic Center

Do you see that blue blob to the lower right of the image center? Astronomers think that it shows where a massive star exploded as a supernova whose light reached Earth 1,700 years ago. The image combines optical data from the PanSTARRS telescopes in Hawaii (background stars in red, green, and blue), radio from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa (large red cloud) and X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton (shown in blue). The large cloud is a star forming region called Sagittarius C, which is approximately 50 light-years in extent and about 26,000 light-years from Earth. It is located only about 260 light-years from the supermassive black hole in the center of the Galaxy (off to the left of the image). If the blue blob is confirmed to be a supernova remnant, it would be one of the closest ever discovered to the Galactic Center. In this dense region, the deaths of massive stars are connected to the birth of new stars through gas and magnetic fields in a complex way.

Wed, Jun 17, 2026

Longmore 8: The Hamster Wheel Nebula

How did a hamster wheel get into space? The Hamster Wheel Nebula (Longmore 8) was discovered by Andrew Longmore in 1976 as a part of a larger survey of the southern sky. This survey employed several improvements in photographic technology, including the use of highly sensitive film, to capture deeper and fainter objects on plates that were examined by eye and catalogued. The featured image, taken at Observatorio El Sauce in Chile, depicts an intricate wheel structure of glowing hydrogen that was thrown out into space by a dying star and ionized by the leftover white dwarf. This structure was barely visible on the original plate, emphasizing the power of modern telescopes and cameras. Two opposing clumps of red hydrogen gas encased in the blue veil of ionized oxygen hint at the presence of a companion to the bright white dwarf at the wheel’s center!

Tue, Jun 16, 2026

Moons, Rings, Shadows, Clouds: Saturn (Cassini)

While cruising around Saturn, be on the lookout for picturesque arrangements of moons, rings, and shadows. One such striking sight occurred in 2005 and was captured by the then Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. In the featured image, moons Mimas (left) and Tethys (right) are visible on either side of Saturn's thin rings, which are seen nearly edge-on. Across the top of Saturn are dark shadows of the wide rings, exhibiting their impressive complexity. The violet-light image brings up the texture of the backdrop: Saturn's clouds. Cassini orbited Saturn from 2004 until mid-2017, when the robotic spacecraft was directed to dive into Saturn to keep it from contaminating any moons. Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator

Mon, Jun 15, 2026

Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket

What's happening to this Sun-crossing rocket? The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, visible on the upper left, launched only about one minute before this amazing image was captured. As it rose to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, in late May, the rocket became supersonic before it crossed the disk of the distant Sun -- from the perspective of the well-placed photographer. The spacecraft's high speed caused bow-shaped compressed-air shockwaves to form across leading surfaces, with at least three visible even outside the Sun's disk because they refract sunlight. The trailing exhaust caused turbulence visible on the lower right. None of this was damaging to the robotic Starlink 10-53 mission, which delivered 29 communications satellites to low Earth orbit as planned. And if that isn't amazing enough - the Sun had spots! Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (after 1995)

Sun, Jun 14, 2026

10 Days of Venus and Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately. The recent close conjunction of the two brightest planets in recent evening skies has been hard to miss. With Jupiter at the top, starting on May 30 and ending on June 8, their close approach was chronicled daily, left to right, in the featured panels from Maharashtra, India. Near the western horizon, the evening sky colors and exposures used for each panel depend on the local conditions near sunset. At their closest on June 9, the celestial pair appeared to be only about three times the width of a full moon apart. Of course, on that date, the two planets were physically separated by over 600 million kilometers in their orbits around the Sun. In the coming days, Jupiter will slowly settle into the sunset glare, but Venus will continue to move farther from the Sun in the western sky to excel in its current role as the brilliant evening star. Gallery: Venus - Jupiter Conjunction of 2026 June

Sat, Jun 13, 2026

Interplanetary Earth

In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the outermost gas giant. On that same day people across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn. On the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the sunward MESSENGER spacecraft, then in Mercury orbit. MESSENGER took its image as part of a search for small natural satellites of Mercury, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. In the MESSENGER image, the brighter Earth and Moon are both overexposed and shine brightly with reflected sunlight. Destined not to return to their home world, both Cassini and MESSENGER have since retired from their missions of Solar System exploration.

Fri, Jun 12, 2026

Venus and Jupiter: Conjunction from Avebury

To see Venus and Jupiter together this month, you won't need binoculars or even a telescope. Just look up after sunset and you'll find them emerging as the sky grows dark near the western horizon. In fact, on June 9 the two brightest planets were in close conjunction, separated on the sky by less than 2 degrees from our perspective. Since (brighter) inner planet Venus orbits the Sun faster than outer planet Jupiter, it catches up with and passes the outer planet along the ecliptic roughly every 13 months. But every three years or so their resulting conjunction can be viewed far enough from the Sun to be easily seen in Earth's twilight skies. On June 9, the two celestial beacon's close "cosmic kiss" was captured here next to two large standing stones, the remains of a cove near the center of a 4,000 year old stone circle at Avebury, UK. Larger than Stonehenge, the Avebury henge and stone circle complex is also recognized as one of the most significant neolithic ceremonial sites on planet Earth.