NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as NGC 4565. This is a spiral galaxy seen edge-on from Earth. We can see the thin disk of the galaxy, giving it a more popular nickname of the Needle Galaxy.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding...

In today's image, we see recently studied jets within the Africa Nebula around the neutron star - the x-ray source of Cir X-1. New studies show that the jets form early after the supernova and that they are more powerful than previously thought.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to...

In today's image, we see the dark nebula known as the Horsehead nebula off to the right. To the left we see the Flame Nebula and at the top of the image, the bright star Alnitak, only of the bright stars in the belt of Orion.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below...

In today's image, we see one of the large moons of Jupiter - Callisto. this is one of the large moons of the solar system, which shows cratering on its icy surface.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see what is known as the Pillow Planetary Nebula. This type of nebula forms when a star like our Sun reaches the end of its life and sheds its outer layers. The complexity of the Pillow Planetary Nebula is suspected to be caused by a bakery system at its center rather than a single star.

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In today's image, we see the very young crescent moon - only 1.5 days old and only 2% of the visible face of the Moon illuminated. This is a waxing crescent moon, which would be seen in the western sky just after sunset.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the...

In today's image, we see a long, dark nebula stretching across a red emission nebula in the constellation of Ophiuchus.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see an image that shows a number of galaxies, stars within our own Milky Way galaxy, and dust clouds known as the galactic cirrus, which are a part of our Milky Way.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date...

In today's image, we see an image of an exoplanet which is in the process of carving out a gap in the disk of material around the star from which it formed. We can think of this as how a planet clears its orbit of debris, which is part of the IAU planet definition.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the...

In today's image, we see a 3-second timelapse of a solar prominence as we watch solar material fall back onto the solar surface.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see an image of the Pleiades star cluster. A meteor happened by chance to be caught in the image.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the central regions of the Crab Nebula showing the pulsar located at the center. A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star - which is a star pressed together by gravity such that it has the density of an atomic nucleus.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below...

In today's image, we see our Moon apparently caught in a fishing net in this image. The red color of the Moon is because of the fact that it is close to the horizon and the light has to pass through more atmosphere, scattering out the shorter wavelengths.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive...

In today's image, we see two nebulae: M57 also known as the Ring Nebula and IC 1296, a spiral galaxy - known as a spiral nebula until just about 100 years ago. While they appear roughly the same size on the sky, this is only coincidence, based on their actual sizes and distances.

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In today's image, we see large number of Perseid meteors from the recent shower. This composite of about 500 images shows many Perseids, as well as a couple of sporadic meteors and the planets Venus and Jupiter.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date...

In today's image, we see a number of Perseid meteors captured in various images and combined together in one picture.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see a number of giant galaxies in the constellation of Pave. This include the largest known spiral galaxy as well as a giant elliptical galaxy.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see the galaxy known as NGC 1309. This galaxy is said to be useful since there have been multiple supernovae as well as Cepheid variable stars known in it. This gives us multiple ways to determine the distance and helps to calibrate the distance scale of the universe.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can...

In today's image, we see an unusual type of cloud known as an Asperitas cloud as imaged about 20 years ago, but not formally identified as a distinct cloud type until about a decade later.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this...

In today's image, we see an animated GIF of a Perseid meteor from this past week. We can also see the trail (persistent train) left behind as the meteor vaporized in the upper atmosphere.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this...

In today's image, we see a couple of meteors from he recent Perseid shower. In addition, we see the planets Jupiter and Venus which are currently visible in the morning sky.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the globular cluster known as M13. This is one of the larger and brighter clusters which is actually visible to the unaided eye under very good seeing conditions.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.<...

In today's image, we see the central portion of the Orion Nebula, focusing on the Trapezium star cluster. The brightest of these stars emits the ultraviolet light which powers the entire nebula.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see a number of Perseid meteors from the 2024 Perseid Meteor Shower. The 2025 shower is happening now, although less prominent because of the Moon which will brighten the sky.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see images from the Parker Solar Probe. These are the closest images of the Sun ever obtained, only a few solar diameters from our Sun's surface.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the zodiacal light which is cause by dust within our solar system that scatters sunlight back to Earth. Recent studies have suggested that this dust comes from comets within our own solar system.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to...

In today's image, we see comet 3I/ATLAS which is currently visiting our solar system from interstellar space. It will pass about as close as the orbit of Mars before heading back out into the depths of space.

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In today's image, we see images showing the morning sky this year in July as well as what the sky would have looked like in July of 1054. The difference is that in 1054, a supernova was visible - bright enough to be seen during daylight for several weeks. This year, we do not have a supernova, but Venus is in roughly the same location on the sky.

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In today's image, we see the double open star cluster known as h & chi Persei. This is a relatively young pair of open clusters which formed from the same molecular cloud about 13 million years ago.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of...

In today's image, we see a meteor passing in front of the Andromeda galaxy on the sky in this image from 2016. This image was taken during the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower that year. The Perseids will be peaking again this coming week.

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In today's image, we see an image of the planetary nebula known as NGC 6072. This nebula shows unusual complexity which may be due to the central star being in a multiple star system as well as having undergone multiple episodes of mass loss.

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In today's image, we see recently discovered blue arcs near the Andromeda Galaxy in the sky. These arcs have been found to be a new class of object known as a Ghost Planetary Nebula. This is an older planetary nebula where much f the material is no longer glowing, except for some parts in the blu arc and some of the red glow of hydrogen here.

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In today's image, we see a meteor which explodes in the sky which was images while take the photo of our Milky Way galaxy.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see our Milky Way Galaxy across the middle of the image, top to bottom. In addition, we see sever meteors and a large number of trails from fireflies.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see a Bok Globule, which is a small, dark nebula in space. Within the globule, stars are in the process of forming although still hidden away from our view by the surrounding material.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the...

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as NGC 7331. Wishing it, a supernova is marked which was discovered earlier this month. This is an example of a Type Ia supernova which are key distance indicators in astronomy.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding...

In today's image, we see four images of solar prominances taken over the past year or so. These are formed with the magnetic field of the Sun lifts material of Sun's surface.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see the planetary nebula known as the Helix Nebula in a deep, 12 hour exposure through a 14 inch telescope. A planetary nebula is the end state for a star, much like our own Sun.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the...

In today's image, we see a short clip showing the collision on the asteroid moon Dimorphos. This was part of the DART mission to see if we would be able to change the orbit of the moon by a specified amount through the impact.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image...

In today's image, we see lightning in the sky over the Volcano of Water. Lightning forms when electrical charges are separated within clouds and then discharge violently, with columns of air being heated to temperatures higher than that of the surface of our Sun.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image...