Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 November 30
A strange orange landscape is shown. What appears to be light and dark
orange rocks are strewn about. The landscape appears roughly flat all
the way out to the orange sky and horizon. Please see the explanation
for more detailed information.

The Surface of Titan from Huygens
Image Credit: ESA, NASA, JPL, U. Arizona, Huygens Lander

Explanation: If you could stand on Titan -- what would you see? The
featured color view from Titan gazes across an unfamiliar and distant
landscape on Saturn's largest moon. The scene was recorded by ESA's
Huygens probe in 2005 after a 2.5-hour descent through a thick
atmosphere of nitrogen laced with methane. Bathed in an eerie orange
light at ground level, rocks strewn about the scene could well be
composed of water and hydrocarbons frozen solid at an inhospitable
temperature of negative 179 degrees C. The large light-toned rock below
and left of center is only about 15 centimeters across and lies 85
centimeters away. The saucer-shaped spacecraft is believed to have
penetrated about 15 centimeters into a place on Titan's surface that
had the consistency of wet sand or clay. Huygen's batteries enabled the
probe to take and transmit data for more than 90 minutes after landing.
Titan's bizarre chemical environment may bear similarities to planet
Earth's before life evolved.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 1
A starfield is shown around a comet. The green coma of the comet is on
the lower left. A meandering blue-tinted tail goes off to the upper
right. A slight anti-tail is seen from the coma toward the lower left.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

3I ATLAS: Tails of an Interstellar Comet
Image Credit & Copyright: Victor Sabet & Julien De Winter

Explanation: How typical is our Solar System? Studying 3I/ATLAS, a
comet just passing through, is providing clues. Confirmed previous
interstellar visitors include an asteroid, a comet, a meteor, and a gas
wind dominated by hydrogen and helium. Comet 3I/ATLAS appears
relatively normal when compared to Solar System comets, therefore
providing more evidence that our Solar System is a somewhat typical
star system. For example, Comet 3I/ATLAS has a broadly similar chemical
composition and ejected dust. The featured image was captured last week
from Texas and shows a green coma, a wandering blue-tinted ion tail
likely deflected by our Sun's wind, and a slight anti-tail, all typical
cometary attributes. The comet, visible with a telescope, passed its
closest to the Sun in late October and will pass its closest to the
Earth in mid-December, after which it will return to interstellar space
and never return.

Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: active galaxy
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 2
A big beautiful sprawling spiral galaxy is shown. The galaxy has well
defined spiral arms with bright blue star clusters and dark red dust.
The center is a bright white. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

M77: Spiral Galaxy with an Active Center
Image Credit: Hubble, NASA, ESA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker

Explanation: What's happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy
M77? The face-on galaxy lies a mere 47 million light-years away toward
the constellation of the Sea Monster (Cetus). At that estimated
distance, this gorgeous island universe is about 100 thousand
light-years across. Also known as NGC 1068, its compact and very bright
core is well studied by astronomers exploring the mysteries of
supermassive black holes in active Seyfert galaxies. M77's active core
glows bright at x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and radio
wavelengths. The featured sharp image of M77 was taken by the Hubble
Space Telescope. The image shows details of the spiral's winding spiral
arms as traced by obscuring red dust clouds and blue star clusters, all
circling the galaxy's bright white luminous center.

Free APOD Lecture in Phoenix: Wednesday, December 10 at 7 pm
Tomorrow's picture: black hole trip
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 3
The illustration shows a structured orange band stretching horizontally
across the imager. Connected in the middle is the Milky Way Galaxy
curving up to the top of the frame. A second image of the orange band
runs like a sine wave across the lower half of the frame, while a
second image of the Milky Way galaxy appears just above it. Please see
the explanation for more detailed information.

Visualization: Near a Black Hole and Disk
Illustration Credit: NASA's GSFC, J. Schnittman & B. Powell; Text:
Francis Reddy (U. Maryland, NASA's GSFC)

Explanation: What would it look like to plunge into a monster black
hole? This image from a supercomputer visualization shows the entire
sky as seen from a simulated camera plunging toward a
4-million-solar-mass black hole, similar to the one at the center of
our galaxy. The camera lies about 16 million kilometers from the black
holeCÇÖs event horizon and is moving inward at 62% the speed of light.
Thanks to gravityCÇÖs funhouse effects, the starry band of the Milky Way
appears both as a compact loop at the top of this view and as a
secondary image stretching across the bottom. Move the cursor over the
image for additional explanations. Visualizations like this allow
astronomers to explore black holes in ways not otherwise possible.

Tomorrow's picture: galaxy in the furnace
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 4

Galaxies in the Furnace
Image Credit & Copyright: Simone Curzi and the ShaRA Team

Explanation: An example of violence on a cosmic scale, enormous
elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 lies about 75 million light-years away
toward Fornax, the southern constellation of the Furnace. Investigating
the startling sight, astronomers suspect the giant galaxy of colliding
with smaller neighbor NGC 1317 seen just right of the large galaxy's
center, producing far flung star streams in loops and shells. Light
from their close encounter would have reached Earth some 100 million
years ago. In the sharp telescopic image, the central regions of NGC
1316 and NGC 1317 appear separated by over 100,000 light-years. Complex
dust lanes visible within also indicate that NGC 1316 is itself the
result of a merger of galaxies in the distant past. Found on the
outskirts of the Fornax galaxy cluster, NGC 1316 is known as Fornax A.
One of the visually brightest of the Fornax cluster galaxies it is one
of the strongest and largest celestial radio sources with radio
emission extending well beyond this one degree wide field-of-view.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 5

The Bipolar Jets of KX Andromedae
Image Credit & Copyright: Tim Schaeffer and the Deep Sky Collective

Explanation: Blasting outward from variable star KX Andromedae, these
stunning bipolar jets are 19 light-years long. Recently discovered,
they are revealed in unprecedented detail in this deep telescopic image
centered on KX And and composed from over 692 hours of combined image
data. In fact, KX And is spectroscopically found to be an interacting
binary star system consisting of a bright, hot B-type star with a
swollen cool giant star as its co-orbiting, close companion. The
stellar material from the cool giant star is likely being transferred
to the hot B-type star through an accretion disk, with spectacular
symmetric jets driven outward perpendicular to the disk itself. The
known distance to KX And of 2,500 light-years, angular size of the
jets, and estimated inclination of the accretion disk lead to the size
estimate for each jet of an astonishing 19 light-years.

Free APOD Lecture in Phoenix: Wednesday, December 10 at 7 pm
Tomorrow's picture: remember where you parked
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 6

Apollo 17 at Shorty Crater
Apollo 17 Crew, NASA

Explanation: Fifty three years ago, in December of 1972, Apollo 17
astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on
the Moon exploring the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald
Evans orbited overhead. This snapshot from another world was taken by
Cernan as he and Schmitt roamed the lunar valley's floor. The image
shows Schmitt next to the lunar rover parked at the southeast rim of
Shorty Crater. That location is near the spot where geologist Schmitt
discovered orange lunar soil. The Apollo 17 crew returned with 110
kilograms of rock and soil samples, more than was returned from any of
the other lunar landing sites. And for now, Cernan and Schmitt are the
last to walk on the Moon.

Tomorrow's picture: the spectrum of the Sun
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 9
A starfield is shown with a brown and gold tinted dust structures in
front of a glowing blue gas background. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

The Heart of the Soul Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Nicola Bugin

Explanation: This cosmic close-up looks deep inside the Soul Nebula.
The dark and brooding dust clouds outlined by bright ridges of glowing
gas are cataloged as IC 1871. About 25 light-years across, the
telescopic field of view spans only a small part of the much larger
Heart and Soul nebulae. At an estimated distance of 6,500 light-years,
the star-forming complex lies within the Perseus spiral arm of the
Milky Way, seen in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation of the
Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia). An example of triggered star
formation, the dense star-forming clouds of IC 1871 are themselves
sculpted by the intense winds and radiation of the region's massive
young stars. This color image adopts a palette made popular in Hubble
images of star-forming regions.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 10

The Horsehead Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: George Chatzifrantzis

Explanation: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, this dusty
interstellar molecular cloud has by chance has assumed an immediately
recognizable shape. Fittingly known as The Horsehead Nebula, it lies
some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud
complex. About five light-years "tall," the dark cloud is cataloged as
Barnard 33, first identified on a photographic plate taken in the late
19th century. B33 is visible primarily because its obscuring dust is
silhouetted against the glow of emission nebula IC 434. Hubble space
telescope images from the early 21st century find young stars forming
within B33. Of course, the magnificent interstellar cloud will slowly
shift its apparent shape over the next few million years. But for now
the Horsehead Nebula is a rewarding though difficult object to view
with small telescopes from planet Earth.

Tomorrow's picture: the spectrum of the Sun
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 11

Galaxies in the River
Image Credit & Copyright: Vikas Chander

Explanation: Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own
galaxy engages in a sort of galactic cannibalism, absorbing small
galaxies that are too close and are captured by the Milky Way's
gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and
illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the
banks of the southern constellation Eridanus, The River. Located over
50 million light years away, the large, distorted spiral NGC 1532 is
seen locked in a gravitational struggle with dwarf galaxy NGC 1531, a
struggle the smaller galaxy will eventually lose. Seen nearly edge-on,
in this sharp image spiral NGC 1532 spans about 100,000 light-years.
The NGC 1532/1531 pair is thought to be similar to the well-studied
system of face-on spiral and small companion known as M51.

Tomorrow's picture: fox fires
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 12

Northern Fox Fires
Image Credit & Copyright: Dennis Lehtonen

Explanation: In a Finnish myth, when an arctic fox runs so fast that
its bushy tail brushes the mountains, flaming sparks are cast into the
heavens creating the northern lights. In fact the Finnish word
"revontulet", a name for the aurora borealis or northern lights, can be
translated as fire fox. So that evocative myth took on a special
significance for the photographer of this northern night skyscape from
Finnish Lapland near Kilpisjarvi Lake. The snowy scene is illuminated
by moonlight. Saana, an iconic fell or mountain of Lapland, rises at
the right in the background. But as the beautiful nothern lights danced
overhead, the wild fire fox in the foreground enthusiastically ran
around the photographer and his equipment, making it difficult to
capture in this lucky single shot.

Tomorrow's picture: ocean of storms
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 13

Orion and the Ocean of Storms
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis 1

Explanation: On December 5, 2022, a camera on board the uncrewed Orion
spacecraft captured this view as Orion approached its return powered
flyby of the Moon. Beyond one of Orion's extended solar arrays lies
dark, smooth, terrain along the western edge of the Oceanus
Procellarum. Prominent on the lunar nearside Oceanus Procellarum, the
Ocean of Storms, is the largest of the Moon's lava-flooded maria. The
lunar terminator, the shadow line between lunar night and day, runs
along the left of this frame. The 41 kilometer diameter crater Marius
is top center, with ray crater Kepler peeking in at the edge, just
right of the solar array wing. Kepler's bright rays extend to the north
and west, reaching the dark-floored Marius. By December 11, 2022 the
Orion spacecraft had returned to its home world. The historic Artemis 1
mission ended with Orion's successful splashdown in planet Earth's
water-flooded Pacific Ocean.

Watch: The Geminid Meteor Shower
Tomorrow's picture: flyby Ganymede and Jupiter
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 14

Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter
Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SWRI, MSSS;
Animation: Koji Kuramura, Gerald Eichst+ñdt, Mike Stetson; Music:
Vangelis

Explanation: What would it be like to fly over the largest moon in the
Solar System? In 2021, the robotic Juno spacecraft flew past Jupiter's
huge moon Ganymede and took images that have been digitally constructed
into a detailed flyby. As the featured video begins, Juno swoops over
the two-toned surface of the 2,000-km wide moon, revealing an icy alien
landscape filled with grooves and craters. The grooves are likely
caused by shifting surface plates, while the craters are caused by
violent impacts. Continuing on in its orbit, Juno then performed its
34th close pass over Jupiter's clouds. The digitally-constructed video
shows numerous swirling clouds in the north, colorful planet-circling
zones and bands across the middle -- featuring several white-oval
clouds from the String of Pearls, and finally more swirling clouds in
the south.

Tomorrow's picture: andromeda sprite
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 15
A picturesque winter landscape is seen before a dark but busy sky. A
stream and a house are visible in the foreground, while snow-capped
mountains are seen on the far horizon. In the sky are many stars and
many streaks caused by meteors. Also some red gaseous nebulas are
visible in the sky. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Gemini Meteors over Snow Capped Mountains
Image Credit & Copyright: Tom+í+í Slovinsk+'

Explanation: Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of
direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of
Gemini. That is why the major meteor shower in December is known as the
Geminids -- because shower meteors all appear to come from a radiant
toward Gemini. Three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled
from the unusual asteroid 3200 Phaethon follows a well-defined orbit
about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is
superposed in front of the constellation of Gemini. Therefore, when
Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears
in Gemini. Featured here is a composite of many images taken over the
past few days through dark skies from Slovakia and capturing the
snow-covered peaks of the Belianske Tatra mountains Numerous bright
meteor streaks from the Geminids meteor shower are visible. Orion is
visible above the horizon, while the bright star nearest the radiant is
Castor.

APOD Review: RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture
Tomorrow's picture: tree sprites
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 16
A dark landscape is back lit by a thunderstorm in the distance. A lone
tree is visible near the center. Above the tree are two sky icons: the
Andromeda Galaxy on the left and bright red sprites on the right.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Andromeda and Sprites over Australia
Image Credit & Copyright: JJ Rao

Explanation: WhatCÇÖs happening over that tree? Two very different
things. On the left is the Andromeda galaxy, an object that is older
than humanity and will last billions of years into the future.
Andromeda (M31) is similar in size and shape to our own Milky Way
Galaxy. On the right is a red sprite, a type of lightning that lasts a
fraction of a second and occurs above violent thunderstorms. Red
sprites were verified as real atmospheric phenomena only about 35 years
ago. The tree in the center is a boab, which may live for as long as a
thousand years. Boab trees grow naturally in Australia and Africa and
are known for being able to store large amounts of water: up to 100,000
liters. The featured image was captured last month near Derby in
Western Australia.

Tomorrow's picture: Soul Queen
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-7
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 17
A starfield surrounds the edges of a large nebula. The nebula, itself
full of stars, has a blue glowing interior and an orange periphery
dotted with dust pillars. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

W5: The Soul Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Jeffrey Horne

Explanation: Stars are forming in the Soul of the Queen of Aethopia.
More specifically, a large star forming region called the Soul Nebula
can be found in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia, whom
Greek mythology credits as the vain wife of a King who long ago ruled
lands surrounding the upper Nile river. Also known as Westerhout 5
(W5), the Soul Nebula houses several open clusters of stars, ridges and
pillars darkened by cosmic dust, and huge evacuated bubbles formed by
the winds of young massive stars. Located about 6,500 light years away,
the Soul Nebula spans about 100 light years and is usually imaged next
to its celestial neighbor the Heart Nebula (IC 1805). The featured
image, taken from near Nashville, Tennessee, USA, is a composite of 234
hours of exposures made in different colors: red as emitted by hydrogen
gas, yellow as emitted by sulfur, and blue as emitted by oxygen.

Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: Jupiter and the Geminids
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-7
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 18

Jupiter and the Meteors from Gemini
Image Credit & Copyright: David Cruz

Explanation: Jupiter, the Solar System's ruling gas giant, is the
brightest celestial beacon at the center of this composite night
skyscape. The scene was constructed by selecting the 40 exposures
containing meteors from about 500 exposures made on the nights of
December 13 and 14, near peak activity for this year's annual Geminid
meteor shower. With each selected exposure registered in the night sky
above Alentejo, Portugal, planet Earth, it does look like the meteors
are streaming away from Jupiter. But the apparent radiant of the
Geminid meteors is actually closer to bright star Castor, in the
shower's eponymous constellation Gemini. In this frame that's just a
little above and left of the Solar System's most massive planet. Still,
the parent body of Geminid meteors is known to be rocky, near-Earth
asteroid 3200 Phaethon. And the orbit of Phaethon itself is influenced
by the gravitational attraction exerted by massive Jupiter, in concert
with planets of the inner Solar System.

Tomorrow's picture: cathedrals on the moon
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-7
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 19

Long Shadows of the Montes Caucasus
Image Credit & Copyright: Guy Bardon

Explanation: When the Moon is at its first quarter phase, the Sun rises
along the Montes Caucasus as seen from the lunar surface. The lunar
mountain range casts the magnificent, spire-like shadows in this
telescopic view from planet Earth, looking along the lunar terminator
or the boundary between lunar night and day. Named for Earth's own
Caucasus Mountains, the rugged lunar Montes Caucasus peaks, up to 6
kilometers high, are located between the smooth Mare Imbrium to the
west and Mare Serenitatis to the east. Still mostly in shadow in this
first quarter lunarscape, at the left (west) impact craters reflect the
light of the rising Sun along their outer, eastern crater walls.

Tomorrow's picture: the Sun's tattoo
__________________________________________________________________

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 20

A Solstice Sun Tattoo
Image Credit & Copyright: Marcella Pace

Explanation: The word solstice is from the Latin for Sun and to pause
or stand still. And in the days surrounding a solstice the Sun's annual
north-south drift in planet Earth's sky does slow down, pause, and then
reverse direction. So near the solstice the daily path of the Sun
through the sky really doesn't change much. In fact, near the December
solstice, the Sun's consistent, low arc through northern hemisphere
skies, along with low surface temperatures, has left a noticeable
imprint on this path to the mountain town of Peaio in northern Italy.
The morning frost on the road has melted away only where the sunlight
was able to reach the ground. But it remains in the areas persistently
shadowed by the fence, tattooing in frost an image of the fence on the
asphalt surface.

Tomorrow's picture: solstice on a tilted planet
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 21

Solstice on a Spinning Earth
Image Credit: Meteosat 9, NASA, Earth Observatory, Robert Simmon

Explanation: Can you tell that today is a solstice by the tilt of the
Earth? Yes. At a solstice, the Earth's terminator -- the dividing line
between night and day -- is tilted the most. The featured time-lapse
video demonstrates this by displaying an entire year on planet Earth in
twelve seconds. From geosynchronous orbit, the Meteosat 9 satellite
recorded infrared images of the Earth every day at the same local time.
The video started at the September 2010 equinox with the terminator
line being vertical: an equinox. As the Earth revolved around the Sun,
the terminator was seen to tilt in a way that provides less daily
sunlight to the northern hemisphere, causing winter in the north. At
the most tilt, winter solstice occurred in the north, and summer
solstice in the south. As the year progressed, the March 2011 equinox
arrived halfway through the video, followed by the terminator tilting
the other way, causing winter in the southern hemisphere -- and summer
in the north. The captured year ends again with the September equinox,
concluding another of the billions of trips the Earth has taken -- and
will take -- around the Sun.

APOD Review: RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture
Tomorrow's picture: strange lightning
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 22
The sun is setting across a field in a clear sky. In the field are the
famous stones of Stonehenge. The Sun peaks out from the center of the
stone array. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Sunset Solstice over Stonehenge
Image Credit & Copyright: English Heritage, Josh Dury

Explanation: Yesterday the Sun reached its southernmost point in planet
Earth's sky. Called a solstice, many cultures mark yesterday's date as
a change of seasons -- from autumn to winter in Earth's Northern
Hemisphere and from spring to summer in Earth's Southern Hemisphere.
The featured image was taken just before the longest night of the 2025
northern year at Stonehenge in United Kingdom. There, through stones
precisely placed 4,500 years ago, a 4.5 billion year old large glowing
orb is seen setting. Even given the precession of the Earth's
rotational axis over the millennia, the Sun continues to set over
Stonehenge in an astronomically significant way.

Tomorrow's picture: strange lightning
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 23
Trees on a hilltop are seen in a starry sky but with clouds on the far
horizon. A strange red circular band of light is seen in the sky. Near
this band's center, some bright jellyfish like structures are visible.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Red Sprites and Circular Elves Lightning over Italy
Image Credit & Copyright: Valter Binotto

Explanation: What's happening in the sky? Lightning. The most commonly
seen type of lightning involves flashes of bright white light between
clouds. Over the past 50 years, though, other types of
upper-atmospheric lightning have been confirmed, including tentacled
red sprites and ringed ELVES. Although both last only a small fraction
of a second, sprites are brighter and easier to photograph than their
more common electrical-discharge cousins. ELVES are rapidly expanding
rings that are thought to be created when an electromagnetic pulse
shoots upward from charged clouds and impacts the ionosphere, causing
nitrogen molecules to glow. Capturing either form of lightning takes
patience and experience -- capturing them both together, since they
usually occur separately, is rare. The featured image is a frame from a
video recorded from Possagno, Italy late last month above a distant
thunderstorm over the Adriatic Sea.

Tomorrow's picture: mystery dots
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2025 December 24
A panel of six images shows a red dot in the center of each image. The
instrument that took the image is listed on each image, along with a z
number that is the cosmological redshift. Please see the explanation
for more detailed information.

Mystery: Little Red Dots in the Early Universe
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JWST; Dale Kocevski (Colby
College)

Explanation: What are these little red dots (LRDs)? Nobody knows.
Discovered only last year, hundreds of LRDs have now been found by the
James Webb Space Telescope in the early universe. Although extremely
faint, LRDs are now frequently identified in deep observations made for
other purposes. A wide-ranging debate is raging about what LRDs may be
and what importance they may have. Possible origin hypotheses include
accreting supermassive black holes inside clouds of gas and dust,
bursts of star formation in young dust-reddened galaxies, and dark
matter powered gas clouds. The highlighted images show six nearly
featureless LRDs listed under the JWST program that found them, and z,
a distance indicator called cosmological redshift. Additionally,
searches are underway in our nearby universe to try to find whatever
previous LRDs might have become today.

Tomorrow's picture: Fox Fur, Unicorn, and Christmas Tree
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 25

Unicorn, Fox Fur and Christmas Tree
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Kalika

Explanation: A star forming region cataloged as NGC 2264, this
beautiful but complex arrangement of interstellar gas and dust is about
2,700 light-years distant in the faint but fanciful constellation
Monoceros, the Unicorn. Seen toward the celestial equator and near the
plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the seasonal skyscape mixes reddish
emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars with
dark interstellar dust clouds. Where the otherwise obscuring dust
clouds lie close to the hot, young stars, they also reflect starlight,
forming blue reflection nebulae. In fact, bright variable star S
Monocerotis is immersed in a blue-tinted haze near center. Arrayed with
a simple triangular outline above S Monocerotis, the stars of NGC 2264
are popularly known as the Christmas Tree star cluster. Carved by
energetic starlight, the Cone Nebula sits upside down at the apex of
this cosmic Christmas tree while the dusty, convoluted pelt of glowing
gas and dust under the tree is called the Fox Fur Nebula. This rich
telescopic frame spans about 1.5 degrees or 3 full moons on the sky top
to bottom, covering nearly 80 light-years at the distance of NGC 2264.

Tomorrow's picture: extrasolar flyby
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
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2025 December 26

3I/ATLAS Flyby
Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

Explanation: Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its
not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of
1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. Still, this
deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently
swept across a faint background of stars in the constellation Leo about
4 days earlier, on the night of December 15. Though faint, colors
emphasized in the image data, show off the comet's yellowish dust tail
and bluish ion tail along with a greenish tinged coma. And even while
scrutinized by arrays of telescopes and spacecraft from planet Earth,
3I ATLAS is headed out of the Solar System. It's presently moving
outward along a hyperbolic trajectory at about 64 kilometers per second
relative to the Sun, too fast to be bound the Sun's gravity.

Tomorrow's picture: Apollo's Moonship
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 27

Apollo 17's Moonship
Image Credit: Apollo 17, NASA, (Image Reprocessing: Andy Saunders)

Explanation: Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module
Challenger was designed for flight in the near vacuum of space.
Digitally enhanced and reprocessed, this picture taken from Apollo 17's
command module America shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.
Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of the moonship with
the bell of the ascent rocket engine underneath. The hatch that allowed
access to the lunar surface is seen at the front, with a round radar
antenna at the top. Mission commander Gene Cernan is clearly visible
through the triangular window. This spaceship performed gracefully,
landing on the Moon and returning the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting
command module in December of 1972. So where is Challenger now? While
its descent stage remains at the Apollo 17 landing site in the
Taurus-Littrow valley, the ascent stage pictured was intentionally
crashed nearby after being jettisoned from the command module prior to
the astronauts' return to planet Earth.

Tomorrow's picture: It's full of stars!
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 28
The ball of colorful stars is shown where the center is so dense with
stars it is hard to identify individual stars. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Explanation: Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And
almost every spot in this jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space
Telescope is a star. Now, some stars are more red than our Sun, and
some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away. Although it
takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun, NGC 1898 is so
far away that it takes light about 160,000 years to get here. This huge
ball of stars, NGC 1898, is called a globular cluster and resides in
the central bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) -- a satellite
galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. The featured multi-colored image
includes light from the infrared to the ultraviolet and was taken to
help determine if the stars of NGC 1898 all formed at the same time or
at different times. There are increasing indications that most globular
clusters formed stars in stages, and that, in particular, stars from
NGC 1898 formed shortly after ancient encounters with the Small
Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and our Milky Way Galaxy.

Space Telescopes Live: Where are Hubble and Webb looking right now?
Tomorrow's picture: boom star
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 29
A dark starfield surrounds a colorful nebula filled with tangled
filaments. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

M1: The Crab Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Alan Chen

Explanation: This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The
Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with
mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex
but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova
and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The featured
image was taken by an amateur astronomer in Leesburg, Florida, USA over
three nights last month. It was captured in three primary colors but
with extra detail provided by specific emission by hydrogen gas. The
Crab Nebula spans about 10 light years. In the Nebula's very center
lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the
size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each
second.

Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: artificial comet
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 30
A star filled sky shows bands of green and purple sky glow. In the
foreground is a grassy field with clouds on the horizon. Most
remarkably, a series of short streaks appear like a comet's tail up
from the horizon toward the upper left. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

An Artificial Comet
Image Credit & Copyright: Wang Chao

Explanation: Yes, but can your comet tail do this? No, and what you are
seeing is not the tail of a comet. The picture features a cleverly
overlayed time-lapse sequence of a group of satellites orbiting Earth
together in June. Specifically, these are Starlink communications
satellites in low Earth orbit reflecting back sunlight before sunrise
to Inner Mongolia, China. Although the satellites appear to the human
eye as points, the 20-second-long camera exposures caused them to
appear as short streaks. Currently there are over 9000 Starlinks in
orbit, with more being launched nearly every week. Other satellite
constellations are also being planned.

Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: celestial waterfall
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 December 31
A starfield filled with a diffuse red glow has an unusual nebula on the
lower left. The nebula has bright red filaments that curve down and
appear to be reminiscent of a waterfall on Earth. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

HH-222: The Waterfall Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Selby

Explanation: What created the Waterfall Nebula? The origin is still
being researched. The structure, officially designated Herbig-Haro 222,
appears in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud
complex. The elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years
but appears similar to a long waterfall on Earth. Recent observations
indicate that HH-222 is likely a gigantic gaseous bow shock, similar to
a wave of water caused by a fast-moving ship. The origin of this shock
wave is thought to be a jet outflow from the multiple star system V380
Orionis off the lower left of the frame. Therefore, gas does not flow
along the waterfall, but rather the entire structure moves toward the
upper right. The Waterfall Nebula lies about 1,500 light years away
toward the constellation of Orion. The featured image was captured
earlier this month from El Sauce Observatory in Chile.

Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 1

Auroral Corona
Image Credit & Copyright: Roi Levi

Explanation: Cycle 25 solar maximum made 2025 a great year for aurora
borealis (or aurora australis) on planet Earth. And the high level of
solar activity should extend into 2026. So, while you're celebrating
the arrival of the new year, check out this spectacular auroral display
that erupted in starry night skies over Kirkjufell, Iceland. The
awesome auroral corona, energetic curtains of light streaming from
directly overhead, was witnessed during a strong geomagnetic storm
triggered by intense solar activity near the March 2025 equinox. This
northland and skyscape captures the evocative display in a 21 frame
panoramic mosaic.

Tomorrow's picture: solar sailing
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 2

NanoSail-D2
Image Credit & Copyright: Ralf Vandebergh

Explanation: In 2011, on January 20, NASA's NanoSail-D2 unfurled a very
thin and very reflective 10 square meter sail becoming the first solar
sail spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Often considered the stuff of
science fiction, sailing through space was suggested 400 years ago by
astronomer Johannes Kepler, who had observed comet tails blown by the
solar wind. But modern solar sail spacecraft designs, like NanoSail-D2,
Japan's interplanetary spacecraft IKAROS, or the Planetary Society's
Lightsail A, rely on the small but continuous pressure from sunlight
itself for thrust. Glinting in the sunlight as it circled planet Earth,
NanoSail-D2's solar sail was periodically bright and visible to the
eye. These remarkably detailed images were captured by manually
tracking the orbiting solar sail spacecraft with a small telescope.

Tomorrow's picture: moon lighting
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 3

Full Moonlight
Image Credit & Copyright: Zhengjie Wu and Jeff Dai (TWAN)

Explanation: The Full Moon is the brightest lunar phase, and tonight
you can stand in the light of the first Full Moon of 2026. In fact, the
Moon's full phase occurs on January 3 at 10:03 UTC, while only about 7
hours later planet Earth reaches its 2026 perihelion, the closest point
in its elliptical orbit around the Sun, at 17:16 UTC. January's Full
Moon was also not far from its own perigee, or closest approach to
planet Earth. For this lunation the Moon's perigee was on January 1 at
21:44 UTC. You can also spot planet Jupiter, near its brightest for
2026 and close on the sky to the Full Moon tonight. But while you're
out skygazing don't forget to look for rare, bright fireballs from the
Quadrantid meteor shower.

Tomorrow's picture: quasar x 4
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 5
A dark field surrounds a red nebula. The shape of the nebula appears
like the letter

The Red Rectangle Nebula from Hubble
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & License: Judy Schmidt

Explanation: How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the
nebula's center is an aging binary star system that surely powers the
nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The unusual shape of
the Red Rectangle is likely due to a thick dust torus which pinches the
otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes. Because we
view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone shapes seem to
form an X. The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and
starts. The unusual colors of the nebula are less well understood,
however, and speculation holds that they are partly provided by
hydrocarbon molecules that may actually be building blocks for organic
life. The Red Rectangle nebula lies about 2,300 light years away
towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). The nebula is
shown here in great detail as a reprocessed image from Hubble Space
Telescope. In a few million years, as one of the central stars becomes
further depleted of nuclear fuel, the Red Rectangle nebula will likely
bloom into a planetary nebula.

Tomorrow's picture: jupiter-sized mess
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 6
The planet Jupiter is shown from an unusual angle. Most prominent are a
miasma of jumbled and swirling clouds including many oval storms.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Jupiter's Clouds in High Definition from Juno
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Processing & License: Thomas
Thomopoulos

Explanation: How complex is Jupiter? NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter is
finding the Jovian giant to be more complicated than expected.
Jupiter's magnetic field has been discovered to be much different from
our Earth's simple dipole field, showing several poles embedded in a
complicated network more convoluted in the north than the south.
Further, Juno's radio measurements show that Jupiter's atmosphere shows
structure well below the upper cloud deck -- even hundreds of
kilometers deep. Jupiter's newfound complexity is evident also in
southern clouds, as shown in the texture and color enhanced featured
image taken last month. There, planet-circling zones and belts that
dominate near the equator decay into a complex miasma of
continent-sized storm swirls. Juno continues in its looping elliptical
orbit, swooping near the huge planet every month and exploring a
slightly different sector each time around.

Tomorrow's picture: noodle space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 7
A starfield surrounds a giant red nebula. The nebula has so many
winding filaments that it has been dubbed the Spaghetti Nebula. Please
see the explanation for more detailed information.

Simeis 147: The Spaghetti Nebula Supernova Remnant
Image Credit & Copyright: Saverio Ferretti

Explanation: Its popular nickname is the Spaghetti Nebula. Officially
cataloged as Simeis 147 and Sharpless 2-240, it is easy to get lost
following the looping and twisting filaments of this intricate
supernova remnant. Seen toward the boundary of the constellations of
the Bull (Taurus) and the Charioteer (Auriga), the impressive gas
structure covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky, equivalent to 6 full
moons. That's about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's
estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. The supernova remnant has an
estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from this powerful
stellar explosion first reached the Earth when woolly mammoths roamed
free. Besides the expanding remnant, this cosmic catastrophe left
behind a pulsar, a fast-spinning neutron star that is the remnant of
the original star's core. The featured image was captured last month
from Forca Canapine, Italy.

Portal Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: hidden galaxy in the giraffe
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 8

IC 342: Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis
Image Credit & Copyright: Gaetan Maxant

Explanation: Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our
neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant toward
the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis. A sprawling
island universe, IC 342 would otherwise be a prominent galaxy in our
night sky, but it is hidden from clear view and only glimpsed through
the veil of stars, gas and dust clouds along the plane of our own Milky
Way galaxy. Even though IC 342's light is dimmed and reddened by
intervening cosmic clouds, this sharp telescopic image traces the
galaxy's own obscuring dust, young star clusters, and glowing star
forming regions along spiral arms that wind far from the galaxy's core.
IC 342 has undergone a recent burst of star formation activity and is
close enough to have influenced the evolution of the local group of
galaxies and the Milky Way.

Tomorrow's picture: Sun dog vs. Earth dog
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 9

Ice Halos by Moonlight and Sunlight
Image Credit & Copyright: Antonella Cicala

Explanation: Both Moon and Sun create beautiful ice halos in planet
Earth's sky. In fact, the two brightest celestial beacons are each
surrounded by a complex of ice halos in these photos of the sky above
Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in France. The panels were recorded one night
(left) and the following day at the end of December 2025. Similar ice
halos appear in moonlight and sunlight because they are all formed
through the geometry of flat, hexagonal ice crystals. The ice crystals
reflect and refract light as they flutter in the cold atmosphere above
the mountain resort. In the pictures both Moon and Sun are surrounded
by a more commonly seen 22 degree circular halo. Bright and sometimes
colorful patches at the intersections of the 22 degree circular halos
with the indicated parselenic and parhelic arcs are also known as Moon
dogs and Sun dogs.

Tomorrow's picture: opposite the Sun
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 10

Jupiter with the Great Red Spot
Image Credit & Copyright: Christopher Go

Explanation: Jupiter reaches its 2026 opposition today, January 10.
That puts our Solar System's most massive planet opposite the Sun and
near its closest and brightest for viewing from planet Earth. In fact,
captured only 3 days ago this sharp telescopic snapshot reveals
excellent details of the ruling gas giant's swirling cloudtops, in
light zones and dark belts girdling the rapidly rotating outer planet.
Jupiter's famous, persistent anticyclonic vortex, known as the Great
Red Spot, is south of the equator at the lower right. But two smaller
red spots are also visible, one near the top in the northernmost zone,
and one close to Jupiter's south pole. And while Jupiter's Great Red
Spot is known to be shrinking, it's still about the size of the Earth
itself.

Tomorrow's picture: the broad brimmed galaxy
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 11
A red-tinged ring of dust is seen nearly on edge. In the ring's center
and extending around the frame, blue gas and stars are shown. Please
see the explanation for more detailed information.

M104: The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
Image Credit: NASA, JPL, Caltech, SSC, R. Kennicutt (Steward Obs.) et
al.,

Explanation: This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is
a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy,
one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.
The dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero
Galaxy in visible light actually glows brightly in infrared light. The
featured image, digitally sharpened, shows the infrared glow, recently
recorded by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, superposed in
false-color on an existing image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
in visible light. The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as M104, spans about
50,000 light years and lies 28 million light years away. M104 can be
seen with a small telescope in the direction of the constellation
Virgo.

Jigsaw Galaxy: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
Tomorrow's picture: meteor drift
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2026 January 12
A view of mountains over clouds shows a starfield with a purple glow.
Prominent on the right is the trail of a bright meteor. To the left of
the meteor and connecting to the meteor is something unusual: a light
brown triangular puff. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Meteor Dust
Image Credit & Copyright: Xu Chen

Explanation: What's happening to this meteor? It is shedding its outer
layers as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere and heats up. The
sudden high temperatures not only cause the bright glow along the
dramatic streak but also melt and vaporize the meteor's component rock
and ice, creating dust. Wind in the atmosphere typically blows this
dust away over the next few seconds, leaving no visible trace after
only a few minutes. Much of this dust will eventually settle down to
the Earth. The featured image was captured in mid-December, coincident
with the Geminids meteor shower. On the upper left is Sirius, the
brightest star in the night sky, while in the foreground is
fog-engulfed Huangshan, the Yellow Mountains of eastern China.

Tomorrow's picture: launched from the Sun
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 13

A Solar Eruption from SDO
Video Credit: NASA, SDO, AIA, Helioviewer; Processing & Text: Ogetay
Kayali (MTU)

Explanation: What just leapt from the Sun? A towering structure of
solar plasma suddenly rose from the Sun's surface and unfurled into
space -- a structure so large that many Earths would easily fit within
it-- marking the onset of a dramatic Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The
event was captured in striking detail in late 2024 by NASA's Solar
Dynamics Observatory (SDO), whose continuous monitoring improves space
weather forecasts and helps humanity better understand how solar
activity affects satellites, GPS, radio communications, and power grids
on Earth. The featured video blends three extreme-ultraviolet views
from SDOCÇÖs Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), revealing how plasma at
different temperatures surged upward as the eruption unfolded. Here,
red highlights cooler, denser material lifted from the SunCÇÖs lower
atmosphere, while yellow traces hotter, million-degree coronal loops
stretching outward as magnetic fields open. After the main outburst,
the SunCÇÖs magnetic fields quickly reorganize.

Tomorrow's picture: pool of whirl
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2026 January 14
A big spiral galaxy fills the frame, complete with blue spiral arms
dotted with red dust and nebulas. Above the spiral galaxy is another
more diffuse galaxy that has faint wisps extending in many directions.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Sleeman

Explanation: The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only
30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years
across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most
picturesque galaxies on the sky. The featured deep image is a digital
combination of images taken in different colors over 58 hours with a
telescope from Lijiang, China. Anyone with a good pair of binoculars,
however, can see this Whirlpool toward the constellation of the Hunting
Dogs (Canes Venatici). M51 is a spiral galaxy of type Sc and is the
dominant member of a whole group of galaxies. Astronomers speculate
that M51's spiral structure is primarily due to its gravitational
interaction with the smaller galaxy just above it.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 15

Plato and the Lunar Alps
Image Credit & Copyright: Luigi Morrone

Explanation: The dark-floored, 95 kilometer wide crater Plato and
sunlit peaks of the lunar Alps (Montes Alpes) are highlighted in this
this sharp telescopic snapshot of the Moon's surface. While the Alps of
planet Earth were uplifted over millions of years as continental plates
slowly collided, the lunar Alps were likely formed by a sudden
collision that created the giant impact basin known as the Mare Imbrium
or Sea of Rains. The mare's generally smooth, lava-flooded floor is
seen below the bordering mountain range. The prominent straight feature
cutting through the mountains is the lunar Alpine Valley (Vallis
Alpes). Joining the Mare Imbrium and northern Mare Frigoris (Sea of
Cold) the valley extends toward the upper right, about 160 kilometers
long and up to 10 kilometers wide. Of course, the large, bright lunar
alpine mountain below and right of Plato crater is named Mont Blanc.
Lacking an atmosphere, not to mention snow, the lunar Alps are probably
not an ideal location for a winter vacation. Still, a 150 pound skier
would weigh a mere 25 pounds on the Moon.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 16

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Justus Falk

Explanation: These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away
in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris
Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of
flowers. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula's
range of colors and symmetries embedded in surrounding fields of
interstellar dust. Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material
surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter
reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting
starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint
reddish photoluminescence as some dust grains effectively convert the
star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared
observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon
molecules known as PAHs. The dusty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span
about six light-years.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 17

Apollo 14: A View from Antares
Image Credit: Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14, NASA; Mosaic - Eric M. Jones

Explanation: Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon on
February 5, 1971. Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell
snapped a series of photos of the lunar surface while looking out a
window, assembled into this detailed mosaic by Apollo Lunar Surface
Journal editor Eric Jones. The view looks across the Fra Mauro
highlands to the northwest of the landing site after the Apollo 14
astronauts had completed their second and final walk on the Moon.
Prominent in the foreground is their Modular Equipment Transporter, a
two-wheeled, rickshaw-like device used to carry tools and samples. Near
the horizon at top center is a 1.5 meter wide boulder dubbed Turtle
rock. In the shallow crater below Turtle rock is the long white handle
of a sampling instrument, thrown there javelin-style by Mitchell.
Mitchell's fellow moonwalker and first American in space, Alan Shepard,
also used a makeshift six iron to hit two golf balls. One of Shepard's
golf balls is just visible as a white spot below Mitchell's javelin.

Tomorrow's picture: infrared Jupiter
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2026 January 18
The featured image shows Jupiter in infrared light as captured by the
James Webb Space Telescope. Visible in unusually dark colors are
Jupiter's clouds including the Great Red Spot, a ring, several moons,
and bright aurora. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Jupiter from the Webb Space Telescope
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; Processing: Ricardo
Hueso (UPV/EHU) & Judy Schmidt

Explanation: This infrared view of Jupiter by Webb is illuminating.
High-resolution infrared images of Jupiter from the James Webb Space
Telescope (Webb) reveal, for example, differences between high-floating
bright clouds -- including the Great Red Spot -- and low-lying dark
clouds. Also clearly visible in the featured Webb image are Jupiter's
dust ring, bright auroras at the poles, and Jupiter's moons Amalthea
and Adrastea. The footprint of large volcanic moon Io's magnetic
funneling of charged particles onto Jupiter is also visible in the
southern aurora. Some objects are so bright that light noticeably
diffracts around Webb's optics creating streaks. Webb, which orbits the
Sun near the Earth, has a mirror over six meters across making it the
largest astronomical telescope ever launched -- with over six times
more light-collecting area than Hubble.

Tomorrow's picture: interstellar garlic
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 19
A colorful starfield surrounds a giant nearly-spherical nebula that has
texture and stripes like watermelon. The lower right of the nebula is
open making it appear like a medulla oblongata -- the stem that
connects to a brain. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

CTB 1: The Medulla Nebula
Image Credit: Pierre Konzelmann

Explanation: What powers this unusual nebula? CTB 1 is the expanding
gas shell that was left when a massive star toward the constellation of
Cassiopeia exploded about 10,000 years ago. The star likely detonated
when it ran out of elements, near its core, that could create
stabilizing pressure with nuclear fusion. The resulting supernova
remnant, nicknamed the Medulla Nebula for its brain-like shape, still
glows in visible light because of the heat generated by its collision
with confining interstellar gas. Why the nebula also glows in X-ray
light, though, remains a topic of research. One hypothesis holds that
an energetic pulsar was created and powers the nebula with a fast
outwardly moving wind. Following this lead, a pulsar was found in radio
waves that appears to have been expelled by the supernova explosion at
over 1000 kilometers per second. Although the Medulla Nebula appears as
large as a full moon, it is so faint that it took 84-hours of exposure
with a small telescope in Texas, USA, to create the featured image.

Tomorrow's picture: volcano world
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 20
A big ball that is mostly yellow is shown. The ball has many circular
and irregular regions that are different colors, typically brown or
olive green. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Io in True Color
Image Credit: NASA, JPL, Galileo Project

Explanation: The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow.
The featured picture, an attempt to show how Io would appear in the
"true colors" perceptible to the average human eye, was taken in 1999
July by the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.
Io's colors derive from sulfur and molten silicate rock. The unusual
surface of Io is kept very young by its system of active volcanoes. The
intense tidal gravity of Jupiter stretches Io and damps wobbles caused
by Jupiter's other Galilean moons. The resulting friction greatly heats
Io's interior, causing molten rock to explode through the surface. Io's
volcanoes are so active that they are effectively turning the whole
moon inside out. Some of Io's volcanic lava is so hot it glows in the
dark.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 21

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365 from Webb
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Janice Lee (NOIRLab) - Processing: Alyssa
Pagan (STScI)

Explanation: A mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern
constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy
about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That's twice the size of our own
barred spiral Milky Way. This sharp image from the James Webb Space
Telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals stunning details of
this magnificent spiral in infrared light. Webb's field of view
stretches about 60,000 light-years across NGC 1365, exploring the
galaxy's core and bright newborn star clusters. The intricate network
of dusty filaments and bubbles is created by young stars along spiral
arms winding from the galaxy's central bar. Astronomers suspect the
gravitational field of NGC 1365's bar plays a crucial role in the
galaxy's evolution, funneling gas and dust into a star-forming
maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the active galaxy's
central, supermassive black hole.

Tomorrow's picture: the light, the dark, and the dusty
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2026 January 22

LDN 1622: Dark Nebula in Orion
Image Credit & Copyright: Chris Fellows

Explanation: The silhouette of an intriguing dark nebula inhabits this
cosmic scene. Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears against a faint
background of glowing hydrogen gas only visible in long telescopic
exposures of the region. In contrast, a brighter reflection nebula, vdB
62, is more easily seen just above the dusty dark nebula. LDN 1622 lies
near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, close on the sky to Barnard's
Loop, a large cloud surrounding the rich complex of emission nebulae
found in the Belt and Sword of Orion. With swept-back outlines, the
obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to lie at a similar distance,
perhaps 1,500 light-years away. At that distance, this 3 degree wide
field of view would span about 100 light-years. Young stars do lie
hidden within the dark expanse and have been revealed in Spitzer Space
telescope infrared images. Still, the foreboding visual appearance of
LDN 1622 inspires its popular name, the Boogeyman Nebula.

Tomorrow's picture: the faint and mostly round
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 23

Planetary Nebula Abell 7
Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

Explanation: Very faint planetary nebula Abell 7 is about 1,800
light-years distant. It lies just south of Orion in planet Earth's
skies toward the constellation Lepus, The Hare. Posing with scattered
Milky Way stars, its generally simple spherical shape about 8
light-years in diameter is revealed in this deep telescopic image. The
beautiful and complex shapes seen within the cosmic cloud are visually
enhanced by the use of long exposures and narrowband filters that
capture emission from hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Otherwise Abell 7
would be much too faint to be appreciated by eye. A planetary nebula
represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own
Sun will experience 5 billion years hence, as the nebula's central,
once sun-like star shrugs off its outer layers. Abell 7 itself is
estimated to be 20,000 years old. But its central star, seen here as a
fading white dwarf, is some 10 billion years old.

Tomorrow's picture: Earthset
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 24

Earthset from Orion
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis 1

Explanation: Eight billion people are about to disappear in this
snapshot from space taken on 2022 November 21. On the sixth day of the
Artemis I mission, their home world is setting behind the Moon's bright
edge as viewed by an external camera on the outbound Orion spacecraft.
Orion was headed for a powered flyby that took it to within 130
kilometers of the lunar surface. Velocity gained in the flyby maneuver
was used to reach a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. That
orbit is considered distant because it's another 92,000 kilometers
beyond the Moon, and retrograde because the spacecraft orbited in the
opposite direction of the Moon's orbit around planet Earth. Swinging
around the Moon, Orion reached a maximum distance (just over 400,000
kilometers) from Earth on 2022 November 28, exceeding a record set by
Apollo 13 for most distant spacecraft designed for human space
exploration. The Artemis II mission, carrying 4 astronauts around the
moon and back again, is due to launch as early as February 6.

Tomorrow's picture: doomed moon
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2026 January 25
A large irregularly shaped object is shown that is mostly brown and
shows many craters. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
Image Credit: NASA, LPL (U. Arizona), MRO, HiRISE

Explanation: This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the
Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names
are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These Martian moons may
well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of
our Solar System. The larger moon, Phobos, is indeed seen to be a
cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the
robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which can image objects as small
as 10 meters. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800
kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our
Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In perhaps
50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of
debris.

Tomorrow's picture: bubbling galaxy
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 January 26
A galaxy is shown that has a lot of blue and red dots in it. The galaxy
is an long elliptical blob across the middle and not a classic spiral.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 55: A Galaxy of Nebulas
Image Credit & Copyright: Wolfgang Promper; Text: Ogetay Kayali (MTU)

Explanation: Can you see nebulas in other galaxies? Yes, some nebulas
shine brightly enough -- if you know how to look. Clouds of hydrogen
and oxygen emit light at very specific colors, and by isolating them,
astronomers and astrophotographers can reveal structures that would
otherwise be too faint to notice. This deep, 50-hour exposure
highlights glowing hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) across galaxy NGC
55, viewed nearly edge-on. Also known as the String of Pearls Galaxy,
NGC 55 is often compared to our Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large
Magellanic Cloud (LMC), although NGC 55 lies much farther away at about
6.5 million light-years. The resulting image uncovers a sprinkling of
emission nebulas within and sometimes above the galaxy's dusty disk,
offering a detailed look at distant star-forming regions.

Jigsaw Galaxy: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
Tomorrow's picture: Orion's treasures
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 January 27
A person stands in the distance on a snowy landscape shining a
flashlight on the ground. Trees and snow capped mountains are on the
horizon. In the starry sky above, several iconic red nebulas are
visible. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Orion's Treasures over Snowy Mountains
Image Credit & Copyright: W+éodzimierz Bubak; Text: Ogetay Kayali (MTU)

Explanation: Rising over a frozen valley in the Tatra Mountains, the
familiar stars and nebulas of Orion dominate this wide-field
nightscape. The featured deep photo was taken in southern Poland's
highest mountain range last month, where dark skies and alpine terrain
combined to reveal both Earth's rugged beauty and the structure of our
galaxy. Above the snowy mountains, Orion's bright belt stars anchor a
region of glowing interstellar clouds. The Great Orion Nebula, a vast
stellar nursery visible even to the unaided eye, shines near the center
of the scene. Surrounding it is the enormous arc of Barnard's Loop, a
faint shell of ionized hydrogen gas spanning much of the constellation.
To the left, the round Rosette Nebula glows softly, while the grayish
Witch Head Nebula hovers to the right, illuminated by nearby starlight.
Near the top, the orange supergiant Betelgeuse marks the hunter's
shoulder.

Tomorrow's picture: reflecting Orion
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 January 30

NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Eder

Explanation: NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula,
dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by
interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic
constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming
molecular cloud. This telescopic close-up spans over two full moons on
the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC
1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of
contrasty red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked
glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333
contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still
hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic
environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5
billion years ago.

Tomorrow's picture: flight day 13
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 January 31

Artemis I: Flight Day 13
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis I

Explanation: On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis 1
mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth.
At over 430,000 kilometers from Earth, its distant retrograde orbit
also puts Orion nearly 70,000 kilometers from the Moon. In the same
field of view in this video frame from flight day 13, planet and large
natural satellite even appear about the same apparent size from the
spacecraft's perspective. On flight day 26 (December 11, 2022), the
uncrewed spacecraft splashed down on its home world concluding the
historic Artemis I mission. The Artemis II mission, carrying 4
astronauts around the moon and back again, will launch no earlier than
February 8.

Tomorrow's picture: happy face
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 1
Several craters are visible on a tan surface. The largest crater, on
the right, has internal markings that make it look like a winking face
with a smile. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Galle: Happy Face Crater on Mars
Image Credit: NASA, MGS, MSSS

Explanation: Mars has put on a happy face. The Martian crater Galle is
famous because it has internal markings that make it look like a face
that is both smiling and winking. These markings were originally
discovered in the 1970s in pictures taken by the Viking Orbiter. The
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft that orbited Mars from 1996 to
2006 captured the featured picture. Happy Face Crater and its iconic
features were formed by chance billions of years ago when a city-sized
asteroid slammed into the Martian surface. All rocky planets and moons
in our Solar System show impact craters, with the highest number of
craters found on Earth's Moon and the planet Mercury. Earth and Venus
would show the most, though, were it not for weather and erosion.

Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (after
1995)
Tomorrow's picture: fast gas
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 2
A complex nebula is shown that is mostly blue and red on the left half
and mostly brown on the right. Several bright stars are visible, and
many filaments run through, in particular on brown dust filamnents on
the image right. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Orion: The Running Man Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Robert G. Lyons (Robservatory)

Explanation: What part of Orion is this? Just north of the famous Orion
Nebula is a picturesque star forming region in Orion's Sword that
contains a lot of intricate dust -- some of which appears blue because
it reflects the light of bright embedded stars. The region's popular
name is the Running Man Nebula because, looked at from the right, part
of the brown dust appears to be running legs. Cataloged as Sharpless
279, the reflection nebula is not only part of the constellation of
Orion, but part of the greater Orion molecular cloud complex. Light
from the Running Man's bright stars, including 42 Orionis, the bright
star closest to the featured image center, is slowly destroying and
reshaping the surrounding dust, which will likely be completely gone in
about 10 million years. The nebula spans about 15 light years and lies
about 1,500 light years away.

Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
Tomorrow's picture: spider webb
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 3
A dense starfield surrounds a blue and red nebula that stretches from
the lower left to the upper right. The outer parts of the nebula are
blue and filamentary, while the innermost part is red and bright.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Red Spider Planetary Nebula from Webb
Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. H. Kastner (RIT)

Explanation: Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The
Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result
when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf
star. Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary
nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed, probably
as part of a binary star system. Internal winds flowing out from the
central stars, have been measured in excess of 1,000 kilometers per
second. These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebula's walls,
and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. Atoms caught in these
colliding shocks radiate light shown in the featured false-color
infrared picture by the James Webb Space Telescope. The Red Spider
Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). Its
distance is not well known but has been estimated by some to be about
4,000 light-years.

Tomorrow's picture: ringing galaxy
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 4
A spiral galaxy is shown that seems to have rings in place of spiral
arms. The outer ring is blue and filled with stars, while the inner
ring is more red. The center has a vertical bar. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: Wide Field
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Stern

Explanation: Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy
have three? To begin, a ring that's near NGC 1512's center -- and so
hard to see here -- is the nuclear ring which glows brightly with
recently formed stars. Next out is a ring of stars and dust appearing
both red and blue, called, counter-intuitively, the inner ring. This
inner ring connects ends of a diffuse central bar of stars that runs
horizontally across the galaxy. Farthest out in this wide field image
is a ragged structure that might be considered an outer ring. This
outer ring appears spiral-like and is dotted with clusters of bright
blue stars. All these ring structures are thought to be affected by NGC
1512's own gravitational asymmetries in a drawn-out process called
secular evolution. The featured image was captured last month from a
telescope at Deep Sky Chile in Chile.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 6

Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; D. Milisavljevic (Purdue
University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University
of Gent)

Explanation: Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular
lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces
ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few
million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is
blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin
anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of
this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova
explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in
planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light
11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb
Space Telescope shows the still-hot filaments and knots in the
supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding
blast wave is about 20 light-years across. A series of light echoes
from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also identified in
Webb's detailed images of the surrounding interstellar medium.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 7

Crescent Enceladus
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of
tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft
image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016
as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about
130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent. In fact, the
distant world reflects over 90 percent of the sunlight it receives,
giving its surface about the same reflectivity as fresh snow. A mere
500 kilometers in diameter, Enceladus is a surprisingly active moon.
Data and images collected during Cassini's flybys have revealed water
vapor and ice grains spewing from south polar geysers and evidence of
an ocean of liquid water hidden beneath the moon's icy crust.

Tomorrow's picture: Sun spotted
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 8
Most of the Sun is pictured peeking over a hill. On the surface of the
Sun are several sunspots including a very large sunspot region toward
the center-right. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Active Sunspot Region 4366 Crosses the Sun
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Korona

Explanation: An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the
Sun. The region, labelled AR 4366, is much larger than the Earth and
has produced several powerful solar flares over the past ten days. In
the featured image, the region is marked by large and dark sunspots
toward the upper right of the Sun's disk. The image captured the Sun
over a hill in Zacatecas, Mexico, 5 days ago. AR 4366 has become a
candidate for the most active solar region in this entire 11-year solar
cycle. Active solar regions are frequently associated with increased
auroral activity on the Earth. Now reaching the edge, AR 4366 will
begin facing away from the Earth during the coming week. It is not
known, though, if the active region will survive long enough to
reappear in about two weeks' time, as the Sun rotates.

Tomorrow's picture: groovy Miranda
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 9
An unusual gray body looks like a more jaggged version of the Earth's
moon, but close up. Craters and stripes run across much of the surface.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Miranda Revisited
Image Credit: NASA, JPL, Voyager 2; Processing & License: Flickr:
zelario12; Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Explanation: What is Miranda really like? Visually, old images from
NASA's Voyager 2 have been recently combined and remastered to result
in the featured image of Uranus's 500-kilometer-wide moon. In the late
1980s, Voyager 2 flew by Uranus, coming close to the cratered,
fractured, and unusually grooved moon -- named after a character from
ShakespeareCÇÖs The Tempest. Scientifically, planetary scientists are
using old data and clear images to theorize anew about what shaped
Miranda's severe surface features. A leading hypothesis is that
Miranda, beneath its icy surface, may have once hosted an expansive
liquid water ocean which may be slowly freezing. Thanks to the legacy
of Voyager 2, Miranda has joined the ranks of Europa, Titan, and other
icy moons in the search for water, and, possibly, microbial life, in
our Solar System.

Jigsaw Moon: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
Tomorrow's picture: swirling sky
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 10
A person with the arms raised stands atop of a rock peak covered in
snow. Snow covered mountains are all around. Green aurora swirl
overhead and reflect off the snow. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

In Green Company: Aurora over Norway
Image Credit & Copyright: Max Rive

Explanation: Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those
instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds -- mostly. On the
third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not only
cleared up but lit up with a spectacular auroral display. Arms went
high in the air, patience and experience paid off, and the creative
featured image was captured as a composite from three separate
exposures. The setting is a summit of the Austnesfjorden (a fjord)
close to the town of Svolvear on the Lofoten islands in northern
Norway. The year was 2014. This year, our Sun is just passing solar
maximum, the peak in its 11-year surface activity cycle. As expected,
some spectacular auroras have recently resulted.

Portal Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: sun spotted
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 11
An image of the Sun is surrounded by 12 smaller Sun images. Each
surrounding image has some spots on it, but the large central image has
the most dark spots. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

A Year of Sunspots
Image Credit: NASA, SDO; Processing & Copyright: +Penol +Panli & U-fur
-#kizler; Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: How many sunspots can you see? The central image shows the
many sunspots that occurred in 2025, month by month around the circle,
and all together in the grand central image. Each sunspot is
magnetically cooled and so appears dark -- and can last from days to
months. Although the featured images originated from NASA's Solar
Dynamics Observatory, sunspots can be easily seen with a small
telescope or binoculars equipped with a solar filter. Very large
sunspot groups like recent AR 4366 can even be seen with eclipse
glasses. Sunspots are still counted by eye, but the total number is not
considered exact because they frequently change and break up. Last
year, 2025, coincided with a solar maximum, the period of most intense
magnetic activity during its 11-year solar cycle. Our Sun remains
unpredictable in many ways, including when it ejects solar flares that
will impact the Earth, and how active the next solar cycle will be.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 13

NGC 147 and NGC 185
Image Credit & Copyright: Chuck Ayoub

Explanation: Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by
side in this deep telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged
satellite galaxies of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5
million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one
degree across a pretty field of view toward the constellation
Cassiopeia, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at
Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this
frame. Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32
and M110, are seen much closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185
have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally
stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy
Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a
gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of
small satellite galaxies.

Tomorrow's picture: floral arrangement
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 14

Roses are Red
Image Credit & Copyright: Raffaele Calcagno
Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Explanation: Roses are red, nebulas are too, and this Valentine's gift
is a stunning view! Pictured is a loving look at the Rosette Nebula
(NGC 2237): a cosmic bloom of bright young stars sitting atop a stem of
glowing hot gas. The roseCÇÖs blue-white speckles are among the most
luminous stars in the galaxy, with some burning millions of times
brighter than the Sun. Their stellar winds sculpt the famed rose shape
by pushing gas and dust away from the center. Though only a few million
years old, these massive stars are already nearing the end of their
lives, while dimmer stars embedded in the nebula will burn for billions
of years to come. The vibrant red hue comes from hydrogen gas, ionized
by the ultraviolet light from the young stars. The roseCÇÖs blue-white
center is color-mapped to indicate the presence of similarly ionized
oxygen. The Rosette Nebula reminds us of the beauty and transformation
woven into the fabric of the universe.

Tomorrow's picture: flying free
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 16
A star field shows colorful pill-shaped nebula extending from the
bottom left toward the upper right. Colors include, from the outside
in, red, green, and blue. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Unexplained Shocks Around a White Dwarf Star
Image Credit: ESO, K. I+ékiewicz & S. Scaringi et al.;
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: How is RXJ0528+2838 creating such shock waves? A recently
discovered white dwarf star, the farther left of the two largest white
spots, RXJ0528+2838, was found 730 light-years away from Earth. Most
stars, when done fusing nuclei in their cores for energy, become red
giant stars, the cores of which live on as faint dense white dwarfs
that slowly cool down for the rest of time. White dwarfs are so dense
that the only thing that stops them from collapsing further is quantum
mechanics. In about 5 billion years, our Sun will become a white dwarf,
too. The featured image, obtained with the European Southern
ObservatoryCÇÖs Very Large Telescope, shows unexplained bow shocks around
RXJ0528+2838, similar to the bow wave of water around a fast-moving
ship. Astronomers donCÇÖt yet know what is powering these shocks, which
have existed for at least 1,000 years. The red, green and blue colors
represent trace amounts of glowing hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen gas.

Open Science: Browse 3,900+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code
Library
Tomorrow's picture: passing comet
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 15
An astronaut is seen hovering over the Earth. In the top part of the
image, the astronaut is seen against the darkness of space. In the
lower part of the image, the Earth is bright blue with white clouds.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

To Fly Free in Space
Image Credit: NASA, STS-41B

Explanation: What would it be like to fly free in space? About 100
meters from the cargo bay of a space shuttle, Bruce McCandless II was
living the dream -- floating farther out than anyone had ever been
before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut
McCandless, pictured, was floating free in space. During Space Shuttle
mission 41-B in 1984, McCandless and fellow NASA astronaut Robert
Stewart were the first to experience such an "untethered space walk".
The MMU worked by shooting jets of nitrogen and was used to help deploy
and retrieve satellites. With a mass over 140 kilograms, an MMU is
heavy on Earth, but, like everything, is weightless when drifting in
orbit. The MMU was later replaced with the SAFER backpack propulsion
unit.

Tomorrow's picture: unexplained shocks
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 17
A star field shows a bright comet with its head on the lower left and
tails extending toward the upper right. A background galaxy is visible
on the far right. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Tails of Comet Wierzcho+ø
Image Credit & Copyright: Jos+¬ J. Chamb+|;
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: Some comets are regular guests of our solar neighborhood;
others come by only once, never to return. We wonCÇÖt have another chance
to see Comet C/2024 E1 (Wierzcho+ø), which is currently making its way
through the inner Solar System. The hyperbolic orbit of this comet
indicates that it will likely become an interstellar traveler. Comet
Wierzcho+ø is today near its closest approach to the Earth, passing
roughly the same distance from the Earth as is the Sun. The featured
30-minute exposure was taken last week in Chile and shows a 5-degree
long ion tail as well as three shorter dust tails. The green hue of the
coma comes from the breakdown of dicarbon molecules by sunlight, but
that process does not last long enough to also tinge the tails. On the
far right lies a spiral galaxy far in the distance: NGC 300.

Tomorrow's picture: cradle alpha
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 18
A starfield is shown filled with red glowing gas. On the right is a
blue-glowing complex nebula, while on the left there is a long
encircling arc of red gas. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Orion's Cradle
Image Credit & Copyright: Piotr Czerski

Explanation: Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born
in Orion. These stellar nurseries lie at the edge of the giant Orion
molecular cloud complex, some 1,500 light-years away. This detailed
view spans about 12 degrees across the center of the well-known
constellation, with the Great Orion Nebula, the closest large
star-forming region, visible toward the lower right. The deep mosaic
also includes, near the top center, the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead
Nebula. Image data acquired with a hydrogen-alpha filter adds other
remarkable features to this wide-angle cosmic vista: pervasive tendrils
of energized atomic hydrogen gas and portions of the surrounding
Barnard's Loop. While the Orion Nebula and many stars in Orion are easy
to see with the unaided eye, emission from the extensive interstellar
gas is faint and much harder to record, even in telescopic views of the
nebula-rich complex.

Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (after
1995)
Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 19

IC 2574: Coddington's Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Dane Vetter

Explanation: Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory,
flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful,
symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form stars too. In
fact, dwarf galaxy IC 2574 shows clear evidence of intense star forming
activity in its telltale reddish regions of glowing hydrogen gas. Just
as in spiral galaxies, the turbulent star-forming regions in IC 2574
are churned by stellar winds and supernova explosions spewing material
into the galaxy's interstellar medium and triggering further star
formation. A mere 12 million light-years distant, IC 2574 is part of
the M81 group of galaxies, seen toward the northern constellation Ursa
Major. Also known as Coddington's Nebula, the faint but intriguing
island universe is about 50,000 light-years across, discovered by
American astronomer Edwin Coddington in 1898.

Tomorrow's picture: in the dark
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 20
A starfield with a light, orange-tinged background has a dark nebula
that looks like a flying ghost visible near the middle. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

B93: A Dark Interstellar Ghost
Image Credit & Copyright: Christian Bertincourt; Text: Keighley
Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Explanation: "A ghost in the Milky WayCǪCÇØ says Christian Bertincourt,
the astrophotographer behind this striking image of Barnard 93 (B93).
The 93rd entry in BarnardCÇÖs Catalogue of Dark Nebulae, B93 lies within
the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (Messier 24), where its darkness
stands in stark contrast to bright stars and gas in the background. In
some ways, B93 is really like a ghost, because it contains gas and dust
that was dispersed by the deaths of stars, like supernovas. B93 appears
as a dark void not because it is empty, but because its dust blocks the
light emitted by more distant stars and glowing gas. Like other dark
nebulas, some gas from B93, if dense and massive enough, will
eventually gravitationally condense to form new stars. If so, then once
these stars ignite, B93 will transform from a dark ghost into a
brilliant cradle of newborn stars.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 21

Twilight with Moon and Planets
Image Credit & Copyright: Tunc Tezel (TWAN)

Explanation: Only two days after the February New Moon's annular
eclipse of the Sun, a slender lunar crescent poses near the western
horizon in this wintry twilight skyscape. Its nightside faintly
illuminated by earthshine, the young Moon is joined by three bright
planets in the mostly clear, early evening skies above the village of
Kirazli, Turkiye. Inner planet Venus appears closest to the horizon.
Near the beginning of its 2026 performance as planet Earth's evening
star, brilliant Venus is seen through the warm sunset glare near
picture center. Straight above Venus, innermost planet Mercury is easy
to spot as it stands remarkably high above the horizon even as the
twilight sky is growing dark. Outer planet Saturn, most distant of the
naked-eye planets, is found just left of the Moon's sunlit crescent.

Tomorrow's picture: robots on Mars
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 22
A black and white image shows an unusual landscape with a bright ridge
across the top and texture like small sand dunes. The shadow of
something unusual dominates the image center. Wheels are visible at the
bottom of the image. near the middle. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

Shadow of a Martian Robot
Image Credit: NASA, JPL, Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Explanation: What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human?
Then you might be the Opportunity rover exploring Mars. Opportunity
explored the Red Planet from 2004 to 2018, finding evidence of ancient
water, and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System.
Pictured here in 2004, Opportunity looks opposite the Sun into
Endurance Crater and sees its own shadow. Two wheels are visible on the
lower left and right, while the floor and walls of the unusual crater
are visible in the background. Caught in a dust storm in 2018,
Opportunity stopped responding, and NASA stopped trying to contact it
in 2019 and declared the ground-breaking mission, originally planned
for only 92 days, complete.

Tomorrow's picture: dust blue
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 23
A cluster of blue stars is seen against a starfield of brown and clumpy
dust. The stars illuminate some of the nearby dust which causes the
dust to glow blue. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Pleiades: The Seven Sisters Star Cluster
Image Credit & Copyright: Kamil Fiedosiuk

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you
have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this.
Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of
the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a
light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though,
the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very
evident. The featured 18-hour exposure, taken from Bory Tucholskie,
Poland covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also
known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light
years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common
legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded
since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars
visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars
visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the
darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's
eyesight.

Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (after
1995)
Tomorrow's picture: opera planets
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 24
The featured image shows four planets lined up behind the Sydney Opera
House in Australia. The image was taken one morning in April 2022, just
before sunrise. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Planet Parade over Sydney Opera House
Image Credit & Copyright: Prasun Agrawal

Explanation: Look up this week and see a whole bunch of planets. Just
after sunset, looking west (mostly), planets Mercury, Venus, Saturn,
and Jupiter will all be visible to the unaided eye simultaneously. If
you have a telescope, planets Uranus and Neptune can also be seen. In
order up from the horizon, the lineup this week will be Venus (the
brightest), Mercury, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter (second
brightest). It doesn't matter where on Earth you live because this
early evening planet parade will be visible through clear skies all
around the globe. The planets will appear to be nearly in a line
because they all orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane: the ecliptic.
The featured image shows a similar planet parade that occurred in 2022,
captured over the Sydney Opera House in southern Australia. Although
visible all week, the planets will be most easily seen together this
weekend.

Tomorrow's picture: space egg
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 25
A starfield is shown with an unusual orange object in the center.
Surrounding this object are blue rings and four thick jets. Please see
the explanation for more detailed information.

The Egg Nebula from the Hubble Telescope
Image Credit & Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Balick (U. Washington)

Explanation: Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun?
The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question.
Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the
nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble
Space Telescope. The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot
core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas
and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are
structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust
being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core. Light beams
emanate from that blocked core, escaping through holes carved in the
older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the starCÇÖs
poles. Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the
disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!)
phase of the starCÇÖs evolution, making this an egg-cellent image to
study!

Tomorrow's picture: spiral webb
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 26

Webb and Hubble: IC 5332
Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST and
PHANGS-HST Teams
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: What does the universe look like through infrared goggles?
Our eyes can only see visible light, but astronomers want to see more.
TodayCÇÖs APOD shows spiral galaxy IC 5332 as seen by two NASA
telescopes: Webb in mid-infrared and Hubble in ultraviolet and visible
light. To toggle between the two space-based views just slide your
cursor over the image (or follow this link). The Hubble image
highlights the spiral arms of the galaxy separated by dark regions,
whereas the Webb image reveals a finer, more tangled structure.
Interstellar dust scatters and absorbs light from the stars in the
galaxy, causing the dark dust lanes in the Hubble image, and then emits
heat in infrared light, so dust glows in this Webb image. The
Mid-InfraRed Instrument on Webb needs to operate at a chilling
temperature of -266+|C (or - 447+|F), otherwise it would detect infrared
radiation from the telescope itself. Combining these observations,
astronomers connect the CÇ£small scaleCÇØ of gas and stars to the truly
large scale of galactic structure and evolution.

Tomorrow's picture: invertebrates in space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 27

Sharpless 249 and the Jellyfish Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Katelyn Beecroft

Explanation: Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught
in this alluring telescopic field of view. Floating in the interstellar
sea, the nebula is anchored right and left by two bright stars, Mu and
Eta Geminorum, at the foot of the celestial twins. The Jellyfish Nebula
itself is right of center, seen as a brighter arcing ridge of emission
with dangling tentacles. In fact, this cosmic jellyfish is part of
bubble-shaped supernova remnant IC 443, the expanding debris cloud from
a massive star that exploded. Light from the explosion first reached
planet Earth over 30,000 years ago. Like its cousin in astrophysical
waters the Crab Nebula supernova remnant, the Jellyfish Nebula is known
to harbor a neutron star, the ultradense remnant of the collapsed
stellar core. An emission nebula cataloged as Sharpless 249 fills the
field at the upper left. The Jellyfish Nebula is about 5,000
light-years away. At that distance, this image would be about 300
light-years across.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 February 28

Lunar Occultation of Mercury
Image Credit & Copyright: Fabrizio Melandri

Explanation: Fans of the western sky after sunset have lately enjoyed
this month's remarkable array of bright planets. Witnessed from some
locations, on February 18 planet Mercury even appeared to slide behind
the Moon, an event known as a lunar occultation. These two snapshots,
taken in early evening skies show before and after telescopic views of
the rare disappearance of innermost planet behind young Moon. The top
panel finds bright Mercury just visible at the northern (right) edge of
the earthshine-illuminated lunar disk. In the bottom panel the bright
planet has emerged in darker skies beyond the Moon's sunlit crescent.
As seen south of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, planet Earth, this lunar
occultation of Mercury lasted only about 3 minutes (video). But you can
still check out a parade of planets tonight.

March 3: Total Lunar Eclipse
Tomorrow's picture: moon dark
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 March 1

The Moon During a Total Lunar Eclipse
Video Credit: Wang Letian & Zhang Jiajie

Explanation: How does the Moon's appearance change during a total lunar
eclipse? The featured time-lapse video was digitally processed to keep
the Moon bright and centered during the 5-hour eclipse of 2018 January
31. At first the full moon is visible because only a full moon can
undergo a lunar eclipse. Stars move by in the background because the
Moon orbits the Earth during the eclipse. The circular shadow of the
Earth is then seen moving across the Moon. The light blue hue of the
shadow's edge is related to why Earth's sky is blue, while the deep red
hue of the shadow's center is related to why the Sun appears red when
near the horizon. Tomorrow night, people living in Eastern Asia,
Australia, and much of North America may get to see a Total Blood Moon
Lunar Eclipse. Here the term blood refers to the (likely) red color of
a fully eclipsed Moon.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: Orion's dust
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 March 2
The featured image shows a dusty starfield with intricate dust
filaments all over. Red, blue, and brown nebulas will the field. Please
see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Dusty Surroundings of Orion and the Pleiades
Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Fern+índez

Explanation: How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can
you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here
is a test: see if you can find some well-known night-sky icons in a
deep image filled with filaments of normally faint dust and gas. This
image contains the Pleiades star cluster, Barnard's Loop, Orion Nebula,
Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Witch Head Nebula, Eridanus Loop, and the
California Nebula. To find their real locations, here is an annotated
image version. The reason this task might be difficult is similar to
the reason it is initially hard to identify familiar constellations in
a very dark sky: the tapestry of our night sky has an extremely deep
hidden complexity. The featured composite reveals some of this
complexity in a 16 hours of sky exposure in dark skies over Granada,
Spain.

Tonight: Total Lunar Eclipse
Tomorrow's picture: over Mars
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 March 3

Flying over the North Pole of Mars
Video Credit: ESA, Mars Express, VMC; Processing & License: Simeon
Schmau+f

Explanation: If you could fly over the North Pole of Mars, what would
you see? Images from ESACÇÖs Mars Express mission in 2019 were compiled
into the featured video which shows just such a trip. First you see
below you a landscape tinted orange by rusted iron in the fine soil,
with some land appearing darker due to exposed rock. Soon the northern
polar cap comes into view, mostly white because of its reflective
frozen water. Surrounding the polar cap is the North Polar Basin, a
layered depression covered with dust and sand. The frames in the
featured video were captured during northern Martian Spring when the
carbon-dioxide ice is evaporating, leaving the underlying water-ice in
the cap. Mars Express continues to study the Martian surface and look
for clues about the Red Planet's ancient climate and potential for
life.

Tomorrow's picture: Space Eye
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 March 4
A starfield is shown with a large circular blue ring in the center. In
the ring's center is a bright blue spot. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

Shapley 1: An Annular Planetary Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Peter Bresseler; Text: Keighley Rockcliffe
(NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Explanation: WhatCÇÖs looking back at you isnCÇÖt a cosmic eye, but Shapley
1, a beautifully symmetric planetary nebula. Shapley 1, also known as
the Fine Ring Nebula or PLN 329+2.1, bejewels the southern sky
constellation of the Carpenter's Square (Norma). The nebula is the
result of a star near the mass of our Sun running out of fuel and
shedding its outer layers. Glowing oxygen from those expelled layers
makes up the circular halo. The bright central point is actually a
binary: a white dwarf, the remaining stellar core after the outer
layers are expelled into space, and another star, orbiting each other
every 2.9 days. Shapley 1CÇÖs annular shape is due to our top-down view
of the system and provides insight into the influence of central stars
on planetary nebula structures.

Tomorrow's picture: sun bubbling
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-7
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2026 March 5
A desert landscape with a large volcanic land feature jutting out in
the center. Above is a series of eclipse phases of the moon traveling
from the top left downward toward the peak of the central volcanic
landmark. The phases show the moon transitioning from a white full moon
to a dark moon and into a red moon once it connects with the landmark
in the image. Clicking on the picture will download the highest
resolution version available.

Total Lunar Eclipse over Ts+¬ Bit'a'+¡
Image Credit & Copyright: Satoru Murata; Text: Keighley Rockcliffe
(NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: Earlier this week, EarthCÇÖs shadow swept across the full
Moon in the yearCÇÖs only total lunar eclipse. This stunning sequence
combines images showing the MoonCÇÖs path across the night sky. Each
lunar image captures our planetCÇÖs shadow gradually engulfing the Moon,
culminating in its red glow. Sunlight scatters and refracts as it
passes through EarthCÇÖs atmosphere toward the Moon. Shorter wavelength
light (blue and green) scatters more efficiently, leaving red, orange,
and yellow hues to paint the lunar surface. Ts+¬ Bit'a'+¡ (CÇØrock with
wingsCÇØ, also known as Shiprock), located in Navajo Nation, provides a
powerful volcanic foreground central to this photo and to stories of
Navajo origin, adventure, and heroism. As the first full moon of the
lunar new year, this eclipse held significance across cultures. Visible
from East Asia to North America, this eclipse united observers across
great distances, a cosmic reminder that we share the same sky.

Tomorrow's picture: astrosphere
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-7
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)