The universe is truly magical: vast, mysterious, and endlessly fascinating. There’s something almost unreal about being able to see photos captured from the depths of space, where time and distance stretch beyond imagination.
Today, we’ve gathered some of the most breathtaking astronomy photos ever taken — stunning glimpses of stars, planets glowing in distant systems, and galaxies swirling in cosmic harmony. Each image is a reminder of just how small we are… and how beautiful the universe can be. Keep scrolling, and get ready to be amazed.
#1 I Traveled To The Top Of The Famous Mauna Kea Volcano In Hawaii To Capture The Moment Saturn Slipped Behind The Moon. This Was Captured Using A 14″ Telescope I Borrowed On The Island
Image source: ajamesmccarthy
#2 Saturn Through My 6″ Telescope
Image source: danborja
#3 Volcanic Eruption Captured From Space. An Astronaut’s Photo Of The Raikoke Volcano Erupting On June 22, 2019
Image source: NASA
#4 I Pointed A Telescope Near The Core Of The Milky Way For 10 Hours, And Revealed More Stars Than I Could Possibly Count. The Sky Is So Crowded It Almost Looks Like Noise
Image source: ajamesmccarthy
#5 The “Butterfly Nebula”, June 18, 2020
Image source: NASA, ESA, Joel Kastner (RIT)
#6 The Birth Of A Star, January 25, 2023
Image source: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI. Image processing: J. DePasquale, A. Pagan, and A. Koekemoer (STScI)
#7 From My Backyard In Az I Captured The Dolphin Head Nebula. This Is My Favorite Image To Date
Image source: frustratedphoton
#8 The Aurora Australis Arcs Above A Partly Cloudy Indian Ocean. From The International Space Station As It Orbited 269 Miles Above In Between Australia And Antarctica On June 12, 2025
Image source: NASA/Nichole Ayers
#9 Hubble Views A Vast Galactic Neighborhood, January 08, 2024
Image source: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz
#10 City Lights Dot The U.S. Landscape. May 21, 2025
Image source: NASA
#11 Moon Crosses In Front Of Earth
This photo shows the far side of the Moon, illuminated by the Sun, as it crosses between the DISCOVR spacecraft’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) camera and telescope, and the Earth, one million miles away. Taken August 5, 2015.
Image source: NASA/NOAA
#12 The Family Photo That Charlie Duke Left On The Moon On April 23, 1972
Image source: NASA
#13 The Sombrero Galaxy
Image source: NASA/STScI/AURA
#14 The Eclipse As Seen From The International Space Station, 2024
Image source: NASA
#15 Holding Pieces Of The Moon And Mars At The Same Time
Image source: reddit.com
#16 Flower Grown On The International Space Station
Image source: stationcdrkelly
#17 Crescent Earth, Jun 30, 2009
Image source: NASA
#18 In One Of The Most Rewarding Shots Of My Career, I Captured The International Space Station In Conjunction With The 53-Mile-Wide Tycho Crater On The Moon
Image source: ajamesmccarthy
#19 A Black Hole Gobbles Up A Star
A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration from Dec. 20, 2022. A long stream of hot gas on the right, coming from a star that was pulled apart by the black hole, feeds into the disk.
These events, known as tidal disruption events, can take just a matter or weeks or months from the destruction of the star to the formation of the disk. The gas gets hotter the closer it gets to the black hole, but the hottest material – a cloud of plasma called a corona – can be found above it.
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#20 Photo Taken Of Hurricane Florence Convection With Deep Eyewall In Atlantic Sea, 2018
Image source: ESA/NASA–A. Gerst
#21 Southern Storms – This Image Shows Jupiter’s South Pole, As Seen By Nasa’s Juno Spacecraft From An Altitude Of 32,000 Miles (52,000 Kilometers), 2017
Image source: Betsy Asher Hall and Gervasio Robles based on images provided courtesy of NASA
#22 Comet A6 (Lemmon) From My Backyard, 2025
Image source: MrJackDog, brennanmgilmore
#23 Detailed Beauty Of Ring Nebula, 2023
Image source: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (UCL), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)
#24 Two Dramatically Different Faces Of Our Red Planet Neighbor Appear In These Comparison Images Showing How A Global Dust Storm Engulfed Mars
Image source: NASA, James Bell (Cornell Univ.), Michael Wolff (Space Science Inst.), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA
#25 Astronaut Bruce Mccandless Performs The First Untethered Spacewalk
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II approaches his maximum distance from the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger in this 70mm photo from Feb. 7, 1984.
Image source: NASA
#26 I Teamed Up With A Fellow Friend To Try And Capture The Most Ridiculously Detailed Image Of The Entire Sun We Could
The result was a whopping 140 megapixels, and features a solar “tornado” over 14 Earths tall. This is a crop from the full image, make sure you zoom in.
Image source: ajamesmccarthy
#27 Sunset In Mars, Mar 11, 2024
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.
#28 This Image Shows A View Of The Earth On September 21, 2005 With The Full Arctic Region Visible
Image source: NASA/GSFC
#29 Buzz Aldrin Took This Iconic Image Of A Bootprint On The Moon During The Apollo 11 Moonwalk On July 20, 1969
Image source: NASA
#30 I Captured The Moon Being Illuminated By The Earth During The Total Eclipse
Image source: navidj
#31 What A Photo
Image source: dominickmatthew
#32 The Koreas At Night, January 30, 2014
Image source: NASA
#33 Astronaut Nichole Ayers Trims Astronaut Anne Mcclain’s Hair, May 31, 2025
Image source: NASA
#34 Nasa Astronauts Make Pizza Aboard The International Space Station, September 9, 2024
Image source: NASA
#35 Our Milky Way
Our home galaxy is called the Milky Way. It’s a spiral galaxy with a disk of stars spanning more than 100,000 light-years. Earth is located along one of the galaxy’s spiral arms, about halfway from the center. Our solar system takes about 240 million years to orbit the Milky Way just once.
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#36 The International Space Station (ISS) Will Be The Largest Human-Made Object Ever To Orbit The Earth, 12 December 2006
Image source: NASA, STS-116 Shuttle Crew, NASA
#37 Mars Was Much Larger In The Sky! That Is When I Captured This Photo, Right When Mars Emerged From Occlusion. It’s A Great Time To Take Out Your Telescope, 2023
Image source: cosmic_background
#38 Tiny And Delicate Mineral ‘Flower’ On Mars. The Rover Team Confirmed This Object Is A Mineral Formation, With Delicate Structures That Formed By Minerals Precipitating From Water, 2022
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
#39 Geometric Clusters Of Cyclones Churn Over Jupiter’s Poles, 2017
Image source: NASA, Caltech, SwRI, ASI, INAF, JIRAM
#40 Saturn’s Largest Moon, Titan, And The Second Largest One, June 16, 2011
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
#41 Astronaut Don Pettit’s Fingers Are Refracted In This Sphere Of Water, October 19, 2024
Image source: NASA
#42 Expedition 67 Crew Members Pose With Fresh Fruit Flying Weightlessly, June 3, 2022
Image source: NASA
#43 I Captured The Rare Supermoon Of 2024 In High Resolution From My Backyard Using An Amateur Telescope
Image source: _ibatullin_ildar_
#44 Florida’s Rocks And Rocketeers
An astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) captured this oblique photograph of Florida, on the southeastern coast of the United States. The image highlights the state’s many lakes, as well as the shallow, light-toned waters of the Florida Keys.
Image source: NASA
#45 Nasa’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image Of Universe Yet, July 12, 2022
Image source: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI
#46 The Needle Galaxy Is Nearly 50 Million Light-Years Away. I Used 11 Hours Of Exposure Time To Capture It From My Backyard
Image source: chucksastro
#47 Saturn’s Rings Display Their Subtle Colors In This View Captured On August 22, 2009, By Nasa’s Cassini Spacecraft
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
#48 An Astronaut Captured A Moment Of Morning Beauty In A Region Often Shrouded In Clouds, July 5, 2018
Image source: NASA
#49 Very Cool Shots
Image source: dominickmatthew
#50 Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, April 1, 2018
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran
#51 Realistic Size And Distance Between The Andromeda Galaxy And Milky Way
Image source: Vasek_CZ_
#52 Saturn Aurora, January 28, 2004
Image source: NASA, ESA, J. Clarke (Boston University), and Z. Levay (STScI
#53 Genetically Modified, Extremely Dwarf Tomato Plants Grow Aboard The International Space Station, May 16, 2025
The space botany experiment tests the plants ability to grow without photosynthesis and survive in confined environments in weightlessness potentially supporting crop production on spacecraft.
Image source: NASA
#54 A Falcon 9 Rocket Transiting Our Sun. Apparently, This Is The First Image Of It’s Kind, Revealing The Details Of The Solar Chromosphere Behind An Ascending Rocket, 2025
Image source: ajamesmccarthy, cosmic_background
#55 Red Ribbon Crossing The Cosmos, 2008
Image source: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
#56 You Can Spot This Recently Discovered Ionised Gas Cloud In Our Image On The Left Hand Side, 2023
Image source: the_astronomy_enthusiast
#57 The Heart Of Pluto, 2015
Image source: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
#58 An Astronaut’s View Of The Himalayas
Image source: NASA
#59 First Picture Of Earth From The Moon, Taken In 1966
Image source: NASA / LOIRP
#60 Nasa’s Webb Captures Dying Star’s Final “Performance” In Fine Detail, July 12, 2022
Image source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
#61 Volcanic Eruption From Space, June 12, 2009
Image source: NASA/JSC/Image Science and Analysis Laboratory
#62 Saying ‘Farewell’ To Insight Mars Lander, December 20, 2022
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#63 Mackenzie Meets Beaufort, July 19, 2017
Canada’s largest and longest river delivers vast amounts of fresh water and sediment to the sea.
Image source: NASA
#64 Black Hole Shoots A Plasma Beam Through Space, 2024
Image source: NASA
#65 Nasa Releases Stunning Photo Of Beautiful Blue Dunes On Mars. This Scene Combines Images Taken During The Period From December 2002 To November 2004
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
#66 Nasa Released Some Hq Photos Of Artemis 1’s Close Lunar Flyby, 2022
#67 Hubble Observations Give “Missing” Globular Cluster Time To Shine, 2025
#68 I Left My Camera Running For An Entire Night And Captured Hundreds Of Meteors, 2024
Image source: peeweekid
#69 Strong Flare Erupts From Sun, 2025
Image source: NASA/SDO
#70 Color Mosaic Of Triton And Neptune, Taken By Voyager 2 During Its Flyby Of The Neptune System In 1989
Image source: NASA/JPL/USGS
#71 The Aurora Australis Swirls Over A Cloudy Pacific Ocean In This Photograph From The International Space Station As It Orbited 270 Miles Above And Southeast Of New Zealand, June 3, 2025
Image source: NASA
#72 Astronaut Nick Hague Exercises On The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, October 29, 2024
Image source: NASA
#73 Astronauts Wear Eye-Protecting Specs In Anticipation Of The Solar Eclipse, March 26, 2024
Image source: NASA
#74 Astronauts Jessica Watkins And Bob Hines Work On A Space Botany Study, June 24, 2022
Image source: NASA
#75 Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Swallows Earth
Measuring in at 10,159 miles (16,350 kilometers) in width (as of April 3, 2017) Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is 1.3 times as wide as Earth. This composite image was generated by combining NASA imagery of Earth with an image of Jupiter taken by astronomer Christopher Go.
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Christopher Go
#76 This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope Image Captures A Triple-Star Star System
Image source: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene
#77 40 Years Ago, Space Shuttle Atlantis Launched On Its First Mission. The Shuttle And Crew Traveled 1.7 Million Miles Before Returning To Earth, July 10, 2011
#78 UFO Over The Sonoran Desert? Nope, Just A Falcon Rocket Screaming Into Space, 2025
Image source: cosmic_background
#79 Astronaut Suni Williams Is Pictured During A Six-Hour Spacewalk, January 16, 2025
Image source: NASA
#80 Expedition 69 Flight Engineers Play Chess With Nasa Mission Controllers, April 17, 2023
Image source: NASA
#81 An Unusual Star (Circled In White At Right) Behaving Like No Other Seen Before And Its Surroundings Are Featured In This Composite Image Released On May 28, 2025
Image source: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
#82 Matthew Dominick Poses For A Portrait In The Cupola With His Camera As The International Space Station Orbited 261 Miles Above The Atlantic Ocean Off The Coast Of Africa, October 11, 2024
Image source: NASA
#83 On July 31, 1964, The Ranger 7 Spacecraft Took This Photo, The First Image Of The Moon Taken By A United States Spacecraft
17 minutes later, it crashed into the Moon on the northern rim of the Sea of Clouds as intended. The 4,316 images sent back helped identify safe Moon landing sites for Apollo astronauts.
Image source: NASA
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