NASA

Image of the day.

• Hubble Spies Cosmic Pillar in Eagle Nebula

  This towering structure of billowing gas and dark, obscuring dust might only be a small portion of the Eagle Nebula, but it is no less majestic in appearance for it. 9.5 light-years tall and 7000 light-years distant from Earth, this dusty sculpture is refreshed with the use of new processing techniques.

• Space Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off

  The space shuttle Discovery launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, heading through Atlantic skies toward its 51-D mission. The seven-member crew lifted off at 8:59 a.m. ET, April 12, 1985.

• Scrub Jay at the Vehicle Assembly Building

  A scrub jay perches on a branch near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2020.

• Testing NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe)

  On March 18, 2025, NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) arrived at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for thermal vacuum testing at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF), which simulates the harsh conditions of space.

• Sculpted by Luminous Stars

  This new image showcases the dazzling young star cluster NGC 346. Although both the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope have released images of NGC 346 previously, this image includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.

• Apollo 13 Launch: 55 Years Ago

  NASA astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert launch aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 11, 1970.

• Linear Sand Dunes in the Great Sandy Desert

  In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart).

• Expedition 73 Crew Launches to International Space Station

  A Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station with Expedition 73 crew members aboard, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

• Sixty Years in Canberra: NASA’s Deep Space Network

  This March 4, 2020, image shows Deep Space Station 43, a 70-meter-wide (230-feet-wide) radio antenna at NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. The facility celebrated its 60th anniversary on March 19, 2025, while also breaking ground on a new radio antenna. The pair of achievements are major milestones for the network, which communicates with spacecraft all over the solar system using giant dish antennas located at three complexes around the globe.

• Gateway’s First Habitation Module Arrives Stateside

  From the mountains of Turin to the deserts of Arizona, a core element of Gateway, humanity’s first lunar space station, is now one step closer to the Moon.