Space Images of the Day: Latest from NASA, ISS, Marshall, Webb

NASA Image of the Day
The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.


Total Solar Eclipse in Sunflower Field
14 Aug 2026 at 8:49am
This composite image shows the progression of a total solar eclipse over San Mill�n de los Caballeros, Spain on, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026.


Perseids Meteor Shower
13 Aug 2026 at 9:09am
The constellation Orion is framed by two Perseid meteors on Aug. 12, 2018, in Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah.


2026 Total Solar Eclipse in Spain
12 Aug 2026 at 2:17pm
A total solar eclipse is seen from San Mill�n de los Caballeros, Spain, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026.


Lion Nebula Roars in Webb's Sights
11 Aug 2026 at 11:03am
NASA?s James Webb Space Telescope imaged the planetary nebula NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, using the observatory?s NIRCam and MIRI instruments. The central star?s remains are responsible for the nebula?s structure, including a lion face-shaped bubble of ionized gas and dust ?mane.?


NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir Uses VR Goggles
10 Aug 2026 at 9:50am
NASA astronaut and Expedition 75 commander Jessica Meir wears a set of virtual reality goggles, also called the Nevada Screening Vision System, for a test that measures visual function using a series of vision screening apps testing visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and more.


NASA's IXPE Studies Magnetar
7 Aug 2026 at 8:28am
A first of its kind measurement of a magnetar may have captured empty space behaving in a way physicists have predicted for 90 years, but never directly observed. The results published Wednesday in Nature.


Taking Flight to Prepare for Space
6 Aug 2026 at 9:20am
NASA astronaut candidate Adam Fuhrmann prepares for a training flight aboard NASA?s WB-57 aircraft.


Artemis III Orion Crew and Service Modules Joined
5 Aug 2026 at 11:31am
Engineers connect the Orion crew and service modules for the Artemis III mission inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.


Roman Space Telescope Plaque Install
4 Aug 2026 at 9:54am
Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center complete installation of a commemorative plaque on the agency?s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as photographed on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.


Guinea-Bissau Tidal Waters
3 Aug 2026 at 11:16am
Relatively low tidal waters expose sandflats and mudflats in the Bijag�s Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau in this image acquired on November 28, 2025, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8. These coastal landforms support an array of invertebrates, making the archipelago a popular stopover for migratory shorebirds.


NASA's Newest Wind Tunnel Opens at NASA Langley
31 Jul 2026 at 2:20pm
NASA opened its newest wind tunnel, the Flight Dynamics Research Facility at NASA?s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, on Friday, providing a critical resource for the agency and its partners to test the safety and performance of future generations of aircraft, rockets, and space exploration vehicles.


Starburst Galaxy Centaurus A
30 Jul 2026 at 8:24am
NASA?s James Webb Space Telescope?s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals the nearby galaxy Centaurus A, exposing the dusty structures and hidden activity that shape this unusual system.


Understanding How Martian Auroras Are Made
29 Jul 2026 at 9:48am
This illustration depicts charged particles from a solar storm stripping away charged particles of Mars' atmosphere, one of the processes of Martian atmosphere loss studied by NASA's MAVEN mission.

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Galaxy Markarian 573
15 Aug 2026 at 9:00am

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center posted a photo:

Markarian 573 is an active galaxy that has two cones of emission streaming away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Several lines of evidence suggest that a torus, or doughnut of cool gas and dust may block some of the radiation produced by matter falling into supermassive black holes, depending on how the torus is oriented toward Earth. Chandra data of Markarian 573 suggest that its torus may not be completely solid, but rather may be clumpy. This composite image from 2015 shows overlap between X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio emission from the VLA (purple), and optical data from Hubble (gold).

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Paggi et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAChandra #ChandraXray #ChandraXrayObservatory #universe #X-rayAstronomy #galaxy

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#ICYMI: We hosted a livestream last night... wait, this morning?... watching the Perseids meteor shower! During our watch party, we captured this bright fireball over Huntsville, Alabama, from our #NASAMarshall meteor camera.

The Perseids are still active through Aug. 24, but they will continue to dwindle after today. So go out and see if you can spot some yourself before they are gone. ??

If you missed our stream, don't worry, you can watch the playback on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVRkkrB4eS0

Image description: This Perseid meteor, classified as a fireball due to its brightness, was spotted the morning of Aug. 13 from NASA Marshall's ALaMO camera. Its bright tail streaks behind it across the sky in this image.

Credit: NASA MEO

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Powering the next giant leap to Mars! :rocket:

Teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently completed additional testing of a lithium-fed magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster, reaching more than five times the power of today's electric propulsion systems. The MPD engine differs from existing thrusters by using high currents interacting with a magnetic field to electromagnetically accelerate lithium plasma.

Paired with a nuclear power source, this technology could slash travel time for crewed missions to the Red Planet!

Image description: In this images, the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster is firing during a test series at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This straight-on view looks directly into the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster?s nozzle. The circular opening glows bright pink, with a lighter rim around the edge. At the center, a textured pattern of small, light-colored shapes is visible, surrounded by a deeper pink halo of plasma. The background is mostly dark, causing the bright nozzle and plasma to stand out.

Credit: NASA JPL

#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAJPL #magnetoplasmadynamic #thruster #Mars #ElectricPropulsion

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The Perseids are back! ??

One of the year?s brightest and most popular meteor showers has been ramping up since early July and will sparkle in the skies through the end of August. The shower reaches its peak on the night of Aug. 12 into the early morning of Aug. 13, and we want to watch it with you!

Join us as we stay up late to catch the show on our sky cameras. We will be livestreaming a meteor watch party starting at 11 p.m. CT, Aug. 12, on YouTube. Throughout the night, we?ll talk to meteor experts, watch live views of the skies, and answer your questions.

Read more on our Watch the Skies blog!

Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford

#NASA #Meteors #ShootingStars #Observatory #Astronomy #Moon #WatchTheSkies #Perseids

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NASA is advancing toward Artemis III?s crewed demonstration mission with accelerated, measurable progress across all fronts, outpacing Artemis II integration timelines as teams ready the Orion spacecraft and SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for next year?s mission in low Earth orbit.

The Orion crew and service modules were joined together on July 30 inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency?s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

After successfully completing hardware installations and testing in the Operations and Checkout Building, engineers connected the two major components of Orion that will fly NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Andre Douglas, and Frank Rubio and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano on Artemis III. The crew module will carry and sustain astronauts, while the service module will power and propel Orion during the mission to test rendezvous and docking capabilities with test versions, or test articles, of commercial human landing systems from Blue Origin and SpaceX.

With the crew and service modules integrated, the team will soon power up the combined spacecraft for the first time. After power on tests are complete, the team will continue integrated testing of Orion and complete final hardware installations.

Credit: NASA

#NASA #NASAArtemis #Moon #MoonLanding #NASAMarshall #HLS #HumanLandingSystem #Artemis #ArtemisIII #KSC #NASAKennedy

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Scientists using NASA?s IXPE telescope have found strong evidence that supports a 90-year-old quantum theory known as vacuum birefringence. This effect suggests that the vacuum of space can be altered by extreme magnetic fields, far stronger than one's humans can create on Earth.

After conducting more than 140 hours of coordinated radio and X-ray polarization measurements of magnetar 1E 1547-5408, it showed the polarization is nearly three times greater than seen in similar sources. This higher-than-expected level of polarization they found points to vacuum birefringence.

Further IXPE observations of this source and other magnetars will confirm this signal and potentially reveal other exotic effects of quantum electrodynamics.

Image description: This illustration depicts the complex radio and X-ray emission from a magnetar. In the center, the magnetar is a bright blue ball amidst a starry sky, surrounded by thin blue lines showing the looping arcs of its magnetic field. Bright white plumes of particles emanate from the top right and bottom left of the magnetar, aligned with the poles of the magnetic field, and stream out into space. The top right plume is thicker with a cone near the surface formed by two thin white disks inside showing the main location of the magnetar?s radio emission. This depicts the lens effect theorized to be created by strong magnetic fields. Three light blue wavy lines between the disks represent particles aligning as they pass through these ?lenses.? Below, another cone represents the main location of the magnetar?s X-ray emission with three purple wavy lines between the ?lenses? and a fainter plume streaming into space. The image is watermarked ?Artist?s concept.?

Credit: NASA/Pablo Garcia

#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASAIXPE #Space #IXPE #ImagingXrayPolarimetryExplorer #Universe #pulsar #NeutronStar

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NGC 4736 (also known as Messier 94) is a spiral galaxy that is unusual because it has two ring structures. This galaxy is classified as containing a "low ionization nuclear emission region," or LINER, in its center, which produces radiation from specific elements such as oxygen and nitrogen. Chandra observations (gold) of NGC 4736, seen in this composite image from 2014 with infrared data from Spitzer (red) and optical data from Hubble and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (blue), suggest that the X-ray emission comes from a recent burst of star formation. Part of the evidence comes from the large number of point sources near the center of the galaxy, showing that strong star formation has occurred. In other galaxies, evidence points to supermassive black holes being responsible for LINER properties. Chandra's result on NGC 4736 shows LINERs may represent more than one physical phenomenon.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Universita di Bologna/S.Pellegrini et al, IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: SDSS & NASA/STScI)

#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAChandra #ChandraXray #ChandraXrayObservatory #universe #X-rayAstronomy #galaxy

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NASA and its industry partners are preparing for next year?s Artemis III demonstration mission by completing new wind tunnel tests on SpaceX?s Super Heavy Version 3 rocket booster. The tests, conducted at NASA?s Ames Research Center in California?s Silicon Valley, focused on better understanding the extreme aerodynamic forces the rocket can experience during re-entry. The recent test series builds on previous testing completed at NASA Ames in 2024.

NASA is working with SpaceX to develop the company?s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to safely carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon?s surface and back. The upgraded Super Heavy rocket booster is part of SpaceX?s Starship launch system. Version 3 of Starship and Super Heavy is expected to be the basis for the Starship HLS for Artemis III in 2027 and a later crewed lunar landing in 2028.

Although Starship HLS is a lunar lander designed and built by SpaceX, NASA collaborates with commercial companies to provide access to specialized testing facilities, like the wind tunnels at NASA Ames, and technical expertise, such as the team that set up the wind tunnel testing and helped analyze the results.

Engineers at NASA Ames conduct transonic and supersonic wind testing on a 1.2% scale model of the Super Heavy Version 3 rocket that will launch the Starship human landing system.

Credit: NASA

#NASA #NASAArtemis #Moon #MoonLanding #NASAMarshall #HLS #HumanLandingSystem #Artemis #ArtemisIII #NASAAmes

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NASA?s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed ?Miraflores,? estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, with its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on June 11, 2026, the 4,923rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The butte was left behind as surrounding rock eroded away over time, deepening the broad valley Curiosity is climbing through.

The surrounding area includes an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons.

The panorama is made up of 11 individual images that were sent to Earth and stitched together. The color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

#NASA #moontomars #MarsCuriosityRover #curiosityrover

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Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs) are objects that produce more X-rays than most "normal" X-ray binary systems, in which a star orbits a neutron star or a stellar-mass black hole. Astronomers used NuSTAR to detect regular variations, or "pulsations," in a ULX known as M82X-2, a source in the center of the M82 galaxy. With its excellent spatial resolution, in this 2014 image, Chandra was able isolate M82X-2 from another nearby ULX and rule out the contributions from other possible sources unresolved by NuSTAR. This composite image shows X-rays from NuSTAR (purple) and Chandra (blue). Also shown is the optical data from the NOAO 2.1 meter telescope (gold). The data from the two X-ray telescopes show that M82X-2 is not a black hole, but instead was the brightest pulsar ever recorded.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Toulouse/M.Bachetti et al, Optical: NOAO/AURA/NSF

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The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a spiral galaxy struggling against titanic forces that appear on galactic scales in space. This is NGC 4654, an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo (the Maiden). It is classified as an "intermediate" because its overall shape lies between spiral galaxies that have a bar across their centers and those that don?t. NGC 4654 has a weak bar structure at its center and is located 72 million light-years from Earth in the Virgo Cluster, a particularly massive and populous galaxy cluster.

NGC 4654 is particularly asymmetric, with a rounded and clearly-defined edge on one side and a long tail of gas stretching out from the opposite side ? outside the field of view captured in this image. This gaseous tail is the result of ram pressure stripping, a force that galaxies can experience as they plow through space. NGC 4654 moves with such high velocity that it sweeps up and rams through the hot, rarefied gas filling the space between the Virgo Cluster?s galaxies. This intracluster medium in turn exerts a ?ram pressure? on the galaxy, compressing the galaxy?s leading edge and dragging its gas behind the galaxy, creating the elongated tail.

Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble, D. Thilker, J. Lee, and the PHANGS-HST Team

#NASAMarshall #NASA #NASAHubble #Hubble #NASAGoddard #astronomy #galaxy

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The next member of NASA?s telescope family is almost ready to take its place among the stars.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch Aug. 30, 2026, at 7:20 a.m. EDT on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Named after NASA?s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, generating never-before-seen pictures that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe. The observatory will usher in a new era of cosmic surveys, unveiling troves of celestial objects and shedding light on some of the universe?s most profound mysteries, including phenomena we can?t see. Roman also will showcase cutting-edge technology, including a test of the most advanced technology ever flown in space to directly image planets around nearby stars, a key step in NASA?s search for life on other worlds.

On July 25, the team completed operations that carefully loaded 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the observatory, bringing it an important step closer to launch.

Image description: Technicians and engineers inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center in Florida use a crane to lift the agency?s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to a specialized work stand Friday, June 26, 2026.

Credit: NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

#NASA #NASA #NancyGraceRomanSpaceTelescope #Telescope #NASATelescopes #NASAUniverse #Space #Exploration #Launch #telescope #NancyGraceRomanSpaceTelescope #infrared

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Engine 4 has entered the chat:fire:

The final RS-25 engine for Artemis III has made its way to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where it will soon be integrated with the SLS (Space Launch System) core stage along with the other engines.

Manufactured and tested at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center, this powerful quartet will provide around two million pounds of thrust needed for launch.

#NASA #NASAMarshall #NASAArtemis #Artemis3 #ArtemisIII #NASASLS #SLS #Rocket #RocketScience #Earth #Moon

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