NASA - Image of the Day

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• First Steps: America’s Grueling Second Spacewalk

  A year after America’s first spacewalk, Gemini IX-A Eugene Cernan stepped outside his spacecraft for an ambitious extravehicular activity scheduled for 167 minutes. The challenges he faced led NASA to reevaluate plans, equipment, and training for future spacewalks.

• Colorful, Chaotic Jupiter

  During its 61st close flyby of Jupiter on May 12, 2024, NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this color-enhanced view of the giant planet's northern hemisphere.

• Journey to the Center of the Virgo Cluster

  This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 88 (M88).

• Look Up!

  Astronauts Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Jack Hathaway of NASA, both Expedition 74 flight engineers, look out a window in the cupola.

• Pretty in Pink

  This image of Westerlund 2 features Chandra X-ray Observatory data (pink) and James Webb infrared data (red, orange, green, cyan, and blue).

• Hubble Spies Faint Irregular Galaxy

  This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the faint glow of the dwarf irregular galaxy ESO 490-017.

• Going Low and Slow in Testing

  NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft flies above NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, during testing focused on lower-speed and altitude flight conditions in support of NASA’s Quesst mission. NASA continues to include two-flight days in its envelope expansion as teams work to better understand how the aircraft responds throughout its operating range.

• Students Build Moon Robots for NASA’s 2026 Lunabotics Challenge

  Katherine Rauscher, of Michigan Technological University, prepares her team’s prototype lunar robot for its turn during the finals for NASA’s 2026 Lunabotics Challenge competition on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, inside the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Forty-seven teams from around the U.S. designed and built remote-controlled robots capable of traversing challenging lunar terrain while constructing regolith-based berm under conditions similar to those the agency will face as it returns to the lunar surface through Artemis.

• Chennai City Lights

  Chennai, on India's southern coast along the Bay of Bengal and with a metropolitan population of about 8.7 million, shines with white LED streetlights in this photograph taken at approximately 9:13 p.m. local time on May 2, 2026, from the International Space Station.

• Webb Studies Star Clusters

  This near-infrared image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51).

• Hubble Sights Galaxy in Transition

  This NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveals the lenticular galaxy, NGC 1266. This enigmatic post-starburst galaxy has a bright center and a face that hints at spiral structure, yet it holds no discernable spiral arms.

• Psyche Spacecraft Completes Mars Flyby

  NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, capturing images as it came within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This is an enhanced-color view of the large double-ring crater Huygens and the surrounding heavily cratered southern highlands.

• Moon-Venus Conjunction

  The Moon and Venus, center, are seen in conjunction above the Washington Monument, Monday, May 18, 2026, as viewed from the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington.

• Beacon of Light

  This latest Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features Messier 77 (M77), a barred spiral galaxy famous and appreciated among astronomers for its combination of relative proximity and spectacular features to study. It is located 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).

• Curiosity Shakes Loose a Pesky Rock

  NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this view of a rock nicknamed “Atacama” on May 6, 2026, the 4,877th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The rock had gotten stuck to the drill on the end of Curiosity’s robotic arm on April 25.

• Fresh Food Delivery for Space Station

  You're allowed to play with your food when you're on the International Space Station! To celebrate a delivery of fresh food, NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway (bottom left), Jessica Meir (middle left), and Chris Williams (bottom right), and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot (top right) pose for a group photo.

• Rise Goes to Washington

  “Rise,” the Artemis II zero gravity indicator, is seen sitting on the dais as the Artemis II astronauts speak with congressional staff, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Washington.

• Perseverance Stuns in New Selfie

  NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently took a self-portrait against a sweeping backdrop of ancient Martian terrain at a location the science team calls “Lac de Charmes.”

• NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir

  NASA astronaut Jessica Meir poses with an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit during an official portrait session at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

• Glowing Views from the Space Station

  This celestial image captured from a window on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station highlights the Milky Way rising above Earth's atmospheric glow.

• A Light in the Dark

  A sliver of the edge of Earth is brightly illuminated against the vast darkness of space.

• Unlocking the Mystery of X-ray Dots

  A newly discovered object may be a key to unlocking the true nature of a mysterious class of sources that astronomers have found in the early universe in recent years.

• Building on America’s 65-Year Legacy of Human Spaceflight

  America’s first human spaceflight begins as the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) space vehicle, with astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. aboard, launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 5, 1961.

• Hubble Spots a Starry Spiral

  This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the glittering spiral galaxy NGC 3137, located 53 million light-years away in the constellation Antlia (the Air Pump).

• NASA Artemis II Crew Rings Nasdaq Closing Bell

  Nasdaq Chair and Chief Executive Officer Adena T. Friedman, left, and NASA’s Artemis II crew ring the closing bell of the Nasdaq market session, Thursday, April 30, 2026.

• Artemis III Rocket Core Stage Moves to NASA Kennedy

  NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) core stage for the Artemis III mission moves into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

• A Gently Glowing Galaxy

  The barred spiral galaxy IC 486 glows with a soft, ethereal light in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image.

• Science in Space

  Expedition 74 flight engineers Chris Williams of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency work together in the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox.

• NASA's X-59 Gets Freedom 250 Logo

  The X-59’s tail and jet engine feature a new marking — a Freedom 250 logo celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026.

• The Day of the Trifid Nebula

  NASA celebrates Hubble’s 36th anniversary with a new image of the Trifid Nebula, a star-forming region it first captured in 1997. The telescope leveraged almost its full operational lifetime to show us changes in the nebula on human time scales with an improved camera.