Space Facts & Astronomy
Discover amazing space facts, astronomy pictures of the day, and fascinating information about our universe from NASA.
Astronomy Picture of the Day (December 22, 2025)
Sunset Solstice over Stonehenge
Yesterday the Sun reached its southernmost point in planet Earth's sky. Called a solstice, many cultures mark yesterday's date as a change of seasons -- from autumn to winter in Earth's Northern Hemisphere and from spring to summer in Earth's Southern Hemisphere. The featured image was taken just before the longest night of the 2025 northern year at Stonehenge in United Kingdom. There, through stones precisely placed 4,500 years ago, a 4.5 billion year old large glowing orb is seen setting. Even given the precession of the Earth's rotational axis over the millennia, the Sun continues to set over Stonehenge in an astronomically significant way.
Copyright: English Heritage, Josh Dury
View HD ImagePrevious Days
Portrait of NGC 1055
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away to...
Read More
Globular Cluster M15 Deep Field
Stars, like bees, swarm around the center of bright globular cluster M15. The central ball of over 100,000 stars is a r...
Read More
Comet Lemmon and the Milky Way
What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best? One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectac...
Read More
Apep: Unusual Dust Shells from Webb
What created this unusual space sculpture? Stars. This unusual system of swirls and shells, known as Apep, was observed...
Read More
The Observable Universe
How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could...
Read More
Dione and Rhea Ring Transit
Seen to the left of Saturn's banded planetary disk, small icy moons Dione and Rhea are caught passing in front of the ga...
Read More
3I/ATLAS: A View from Planet Earth
Now outbound after its perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on October 29, Comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third known i...
Read More
Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka are the bright bluish stars from east to west (upper right to lower left) along the diagon...
Read More
Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas
Sometimes the dark dust of interstellar space has an angular elegance. Such is the case toward the far-south constellat...
Read MoreThe Galactic Plane: Radio Versus Visible
What does the Milky Way look like in radio waves? To better find out, GLEAM surveyed the central band of our galaxy in h...
Read More
Comet Lemmon's Wandering Tail
What has happened to Comet Lemmon's tail? The answer is blowing in the wind — the wind from the Sun in this case. This c...
Read More
Crossing Saturn's Ring Plane
If this is Saturn, where are the rings? When Saturn's "appendages" disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why....
Read More