Category: Image of the day

This composite image made from five frames shows the International Space Station, with a crew of nine onboard, in silhouette as it transits the sun at roughly 5 miles per second, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2015.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows Messier 96, a spiral galaxy just over 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). It is the nearest group containing both bright spirals and a bright elliptical galaxy (Messier 105).

​This rocky panoramic scene is the second picture of the Martian surface that was taken by Viking Lander 2 shortly after touchdown on Sept. 3, 1976 at 3:58 p.m. PDT (Earth received time).

This view combines information from two instruments on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to map color-coded composition over the shape of the ground in a small portion of the Nili Fossae plains region of Mars’ northern hemisphere.

Earth’s thin atmosphere stands out against the blackness of space in this photo taken on Aug. 31, 2015 by astronaut Scott Kelly on board the International Space Station.

Smoke from the treacherous western wildfires has wafted across country and out to sea.

This low-angle self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle above the “Buckskin” rock target, where the mission collected its seventh drilled sample.

Bursts of pink and red, dark lanes of mottled cosmic dust, and a bright scattering of stars — this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows part of a messy barred spiral galaxy known as NGC 428.

Among the many discoveries by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter since the mission was launched on Aug. 12, 2005, are seasonal flows on some steep slopes.

This colorful bubble is a planetary nebula called NGC 6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula. The rich glow of the cloud is just over half a light-year across — humongous compared to its tiny central star — but still a little gem on a cosmic scale.

This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the center of the Lagoon Nebula, an object with a deceptively tranquil name, in the constellation of Sagittarius. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.

A second full moon for the month of July is seen next to the dome of the U.S. Capitol on Friday, July 31, 2015 in Washington.

This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19, on June 4, 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth’s weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White’s historic spacewalk on June 3.