NASA - Image of the Day

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• NASA's Artemis II Crew Receives Congressional Space Medal of Honor

  President Donald J. Trump awarded NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on Aug. 28, 2026, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

• Civil Servants Sworn in at NASA Ames

  New civil servants and guests pose for a group photo with NASA and Center leadership in the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC) 80-by-120-foot test section, N221.

• Roman Space Telescope Travels to SpaceX Hangar

  NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, encapsulated in its payload fairing, travels to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026.

• Astronauts Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot on Spacewalk

  From left, Expedition 75 flight engineers Anil Menon of NASA (partially obscured and wearing the spacesuit with a red stripe on the legs) and Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) work together during a six‑hour and 23‑minute spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

• NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman at Freedom 250 Grand Prix

  NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander, is seen in the two-seat IndyCar as he prepares for driver Conor Daly to take him on a lap in the fastest seat in sport ahead of the start of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

• Webb Opens Treasure Chest

  This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month takes us to a fantastical realm within our home galaxy, where piercing starlight and billowing winds sculpt dust clouds into inventive shapes. This scene is from the Carina Nebula, which lies just 7500 light-years away in the constellation Carina (the Keel).

• Artemis Mission Patches

  A NASA jacket containing Artemis I and II mission patches, along with other NASA patches hangs on the back of a chair on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, inside Firing Room 1 of the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a terminal countdown simulation for the Artemis III mission.

• Ancient Milky Way Merger

  About 12 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy known as LKH collided with a young Milky Way and merged with it. This artist’s concept portrays that collision. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope uncovered definitive evidence of this collision by studying globular star clusters.

• NASA's B777 Gets New Coat of Paint

  NASA's Boeing 777 returns to the agency's Langley Research Center after receiving a new paint scheme.

• Colorful Collage of Tarantula Nebula

  Like a collage made of layered sheets of colored cellophane, a vibrant new image layers observations of a famous star-forming nebula from NASA space telescopes. The resulting cosmic “craft” reveals new details about the star formation region known as 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula.

• Total Solar Eclipse in Sunflower Field

  This composite image shows the progression of a total solar eclipse over San Millán de los Caballeros, Spain on, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026.

• Perseids Meteor Shower

  The constellation Orion is framed by two Perseid meteors on Aug. 12, 2018, in Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah.

• 2026 Total Solar Eclipse in Spain

  A total solar eclipse is seen from San Millán de los Caballeros, Spain, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026.

• Lion Nebula Roars in Webb's Sights

  NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope imaged the planetary nebula NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, using the observatory’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments. The central star’s remains are responsible for the nebula’s structure, including a lion face-shaped bubble of ionized gas and dust “mane.”

• NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir Uses VR Goggles

  NASA astronaut and Expedition 75 commander Jessica Meir wears a set of virtual reality goggles, also called the Nevada Screening Vision System, for a test that measures visual function using a series of vision screening apps testing visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and more.

• NASA's IXPE Studies Magnetar

  A first of its kind measurement of a magnetar may have captured empty space behaving in a way physicists have predicted for 90 years, but never directly observed. The results published Wednesday in Nature.

• Taking Flight to Prepare for Space

  NASA astronaut candidate Adam Fuhrmann prepares for a training flight aboard NASA’s WB-57 aircraft.

• Artemis III Orion Crew and Service Modules Joined

  Engineers connect the Orion crew and service modules for the Artemis III mission inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

• Roman Space Telescope Plaque Install

  Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center complete installation of a commemorative plaque on the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as photographed on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.

• Guinea-Bissau Tidal Waters

  Relatively low tidal waters expose sandflats and mudflats in the Bijagós Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau in this image acquired on November 28, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8. These coastal landforms support an array of invertebrates, making the archipelago a popular stopover for migratory shorebirds.

• NASA's Newest Wind Tunnel Opens at NASA Langley

  NASA opened its newest wind tunnel, the Flight Dynamics Research Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, on Friday, providing a critical resource for the agency and its partners to test the safety and performance of future generations of aircraft, rockets, and space exploration vehicles.

• Starburst Galaxy Centaurus A

  NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals the nearby galaxy Centaurus A, exposing the dusty structures and hidden activity that shape this unusual system.

• Understanding How Martian Auroras Are Made

  This illustration depicts charged particles from a solar storm stripping away charged particles of Mars' atmosphere, one of the processes of Martian atmosphere loss studied by NASA's MAVEN mission.

• NASA Astronaut Chris Williams Returns to Earth

  NASA astronaut Chris Williams is seen outside the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft after he landed with Expedition 74 Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Sergei Mikaev in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Sunday, July 26, 2026. The trio returned to Earth after logging 241 days in space as a members of Expeditions 73 and 74 aboard the International Space Station.

• New Crew Members Welcomed to International Space Station

  From left, Expedition 74 flight engineers Anna Kikina and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos, and Anil Menon of NASA pose for a portrait while holding a cake celebrating their recent arrival aboard the International Space Station.

•  Crews Move Artemis IV Liquid Hydrogen Tank

  Crews at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans transport the 130-foot-tall liquid hydrogen tank out of a production cell inside the main factory building into a detached test building on a separate portion of the 829-acre site.

• A New Look – and Sound – for Messier 94

  Messier 94 is a spiral galaxy with a bright inner ring around it, called a starburst ring, where new stars are forming.

• Psyche Approaches Mars

  This composite of images taken by NASA’s Psyche mission shows the crescent of Mars grow as the spacecraft approached the planet for a gravity assist from May 2 to May 15, 2026. Because Psyche approached Mars from a high phase angle, the planet appeared as a thin crescent in the days running up to the close approach, lit by sunlight reflecting off its surface.

• Our First View of the Surface of Mars

  On the morning of July 20, 1976, roughly 40 minutes after mission controllers received word that the Viking 1 lander had successfully touched down on the surface of Mars, this photo gave us our first view from the surface of the Red Planet.

• NASA's Chandra and IXPE Study Pulsar in Lighthouse Nebula

  Scientists using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) directly measured the magnetic fields of PSR J1101−6101, a pulsar located within what is often referred to as the “Lighthouse” Nebula, for the first time.