Picture of the Day

A galaxy with tightly wound, dusty blue spiral arms surrounds a glowing golden-yellow core, seen face-on against a dark, star-flecked background dotted with a few smaller, fainter galaxies. A bright blue-white star sits just to the left of the galaxy, and an orange star glows near the bottom edge of the frame.

A feathery spiral in Sagittarius

A rounded, richly textured cloud of orange and gold gas fills the left side of the frame, its lower edge tapering to a bright point like a torch flame. Blue-tinted dust and haze spread across the right side, with faint dark filaments threading through a dense star field on a black background.

The Hidden Nebula’s glowing edge

The aftermath of a solar flare

A cloud of green and gold gas fills most of the frame, with a bright blue oval structure stretching across the middle. Dark dust lanes thread through the brighter regions, and a small cluster of stars glows at the lower right.

Clawing through Cassiopeia

$A large, glowing orange-tan disk — the Sun — fills most of the frame against a black sky. A thin, dark, needle-like silhouette crosses near its left edge, trailing a bright, feathery plume that distorts and refracts the image of the disk, extending below it. A faint dark smudge of clouds sits near the center of the disk, as well as small dark specks of sunspots.s$