Category: Image of the day

Former NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough is photographed during a spacewalk in January 2017.

Eleven International Space Station crew members gather inside the International Space Station’s Unity module for a portrait on Aug. 3, 2025.

An alligator moves through a brackish waterway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The center shares space with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. More than 330 native and migratory bird species, 25 mammals, 117 fishes and 65 amphibians and reptiles call NASA Kennedy and the wildlife refuge home.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a portion of the Tarantula Nebula.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, left, NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi are seen inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft aboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON shortly after having landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Calif., Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov returned after 147 days in space as part of Expedition 73 aboard the International Space Station.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to identify a new possible example of a rare class of black holes. Called NGC 6099 HLX-1, this bright X-ray source seems to reside in a compact star cluster in a giant elliptical galaxy.

The Artemis II crew (from left to right) CSA (Canadian Space Agency) Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; Christina Koch, mission specialist; Victor Glover, pilot; and Reid Wiseman, commander, don their Orion Crew Survival System Suits for a multi-day crew module training beginning Thursday, July 31, 2025, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Behind the crew, wearing clean room apparel, are members of the Artemis II closeout crew.

This view of tracks trailing NASA’s Curiosity rover was captured July 26, 2025, as the rover simultaneously relayed data to a Mars orbiter.

Second Lady Usha Vance hosted a special Summer Reading Challenge event at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Aug. 4, 2025. She was joined by NASA astronaut Suni Williams to read a space-themed book to children in grades K-8 as part of her initiative to promote literacy.

In this 30 second exposure photograph, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov aboard, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A NASA photographer captured the sunrise on July 31, 2025, ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 launch attempt. The Crew-11 mission will send NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9.

NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems’ Program Manager Shawn Quinn captured this image of the Hadley–Apennine region of the moon including the Apollo 15 landing site (very near the edge of the shadow of one of the lunar mountains in the area).