Space Image of the Day Gallery (December 2017)

Friday, December 1, 2017: The International Space Station streaks across the sky over the Washington National Cathedral in this photo by NASA photographer Bill Ingalls. The 20-second exposure was captured on Wednesday (Nov. 29). While the space station has no Earth-facing lights, it is visible in dark skies because sunlight reflects off its enormous solar arrays. — Hanneke Weitering

Monday, December 4, 2017: The silhouette of the International Space Station passes in front of the moon in this photo taken by NASA photographer Joel Kowsky on Saturday (Dec. 2), just one day before the “supermoon.” — Hanneke Weitering

Tuesday, December 5, 2017: The supermoon sets behind the south tower of the Twin Lights of Navesink Highlands, New Jersey in this photo taken by astrophotographer Steve Scanlon. He captured this view on Monday morning (Dec. 4), when the moon was at perigee, or the closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit. — Hanneke Weitering

Wednesday, December 6, 2017: An airplane crosses in front of the supermoon in this animated series of shots by NASA photographer Bill Ingalls. The plane had just taken off from Ronald Reagan International Airport in Washington, D.C. when Ingalls captured these images on Sunday (Dec. 3). — Hanneke Weitering

Thursday, December 7, 2017: Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazansky captured this photo of a smoke plume rising from the blazing wildfires in Southern California as he orbited about 250 miles (400 km) above the flames in the International Space Station. A thick blanket of smoke is seen flowing west toward the Pacific Ocean from Ventura County, which lies just north of Los Angeles. — Hanneke Weitering

Friday, December 8, 2017: A bright blue flash of lightning illuminates the atmosphere above Earth’s city lights in this photo taken by NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik. “Lightning is always a treat from orbit,” Bresnik tweeted. “Most of the time, the flashes of light we see are larger than most cities.” — Hanneke Weitering

Monday, December 11, 2017: Blue clouds swirl in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere in this photo taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on its ninth close flyby of the gas giant on Oct. 24. At the time, Juno was 1,747 miles (18,906 km) from the tops of Jupiter’s clouds. Some of the high-altitude clouds can be seen casting shadows on the clouds below. — Hanneke Weitering

Tuesday, December 12, 2017: A view from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an area in the northern Meridiani Planum region where faults on the Martian surface have broken up layers of geological deposits. While some of these layers show clean breaks, others appear stretched out, suggesting “that some of the faulting occurred while the layered deposits were still soft and could undergo deformation, whereas other faults formed later when the layers must have been solidified and produced a clean break,” NASA officials wrote in an image release. — Hanneke Weitering

Thursday, December 14, 2017: Meet Simeis 147, a tangled heap of cosmic clouds also known as the Spaghetti Nebula. Resembling a lumpy, sauce-covered meatball, the nebula measures about 150 light-years across and is located 3,000 light-years from Earth. Simeis 147 is a supernova remnant that was born when a massive star exploded some 40,000 years ago. Astrophotographer Ron Brecher captured this view of the nebula from his backyard SkyShed observatory in Guelph, Canada. — Hanneke Weitering

Friday, December 15, 2017: Actually, that is a moon — Saturn’s “Death Star” moon, Mimas. With the giant Herschel crater on its surface, this little moon resembles the planet-destroying space weapon in the “Star Wars” movies. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took this photo of the moon while it was in orbit around Saturn in 2005. — Hanneke Weitering

Monday, December 18, 2017: A gorgeous, green meteor flies toward the northern lights in this stunning image by astrophotographer Matthew Skinner. He captured the meteor over a mountain range near Palmer, Alaska just after midnight on Dec. 14, when the Geminid meteor shower was at its peak. To the left of the meteor, a lime-green aurora peeks out from the top of the mountain range. — Hanneke Weitering

Tuesday, December 19, 2017: An airplane flies in front of December’s full “supermoon” in this photo taken by Steve Schroff in Kent, Ohio. During a supermoon, the full moon appears slightly bigger and brighter than usual, because the moon makes its closest approach to Earth around the same time that it reaches its fullest phase. “Lucked out and caught a jet with nice set of contrails passing by,” Schroff told Space.com in an email. “You can see the engines were underwing and not fuselage-mounted, likely a 737 or A319.” — Hanneke Weitering

Wednesday, December 20, 2017: Astrophotographer Ryan Rivera and his girlfriend hang out under the Milky Way in this stellar self-portrait. “Location and timing really make a difference when chasing the Milky Way,” Rivera wrote on Instagram. “Shooting just south of Asheville, NC during the new moon and aiming south (avoiding light pollution) really helps bring out everything in the night sky.” — Hanneke Weitering

Thursday, December 21, 2017: Clouds and storms swirl on Jupiter in this image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Citizen scientist Kevin Gill used data collected by the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager during a flyby on July 11 to create this color-enhanced view. — Hanneke Weitering

Friday, December 22, 2017: Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige Kanai floats weightlessly in the International Space Station’s Cupola observatory in this photo taken on Tuesday (Dec. 19), shortly after he and his two Expedition 54/55 crewmates arrived at the orbiting laboratory. — Hanneke Weitering

Tuesday, December 26, 2017: On Christmas Eve in 1968, three NASA astronauts became the first people to see Earth from deep space after they entered lunar orbit during the Apollo 8 moon mission. Cmdr. Frank Borman, command module pilot Jim Lovell, and lunar module pilot William Anders witnessed this view of the “Earthrise” over the lunar horizon and held a live television broadcast in which they showed this photo to people back on Earth. — Hanneke Weitering

Wednesday, December 27, 2017: An airplane appears to head straight for the Milky Way in this self portrait taken by astrophotographer Ryan Rivera in Longboat Key, Florida. — Hanneke Weitering

Thursday, December 28, 2017: This Hubble Space Telescope photo of a cosmic holiday ornament shows NGC 6326, a planetary nebula of glowing gas surrounding a star that is near the end of its life. “When a star ages and the red giant phase of its life comes to an end, it starts to eject layers of gas from its surface leaving behind a hot and compact white dwarf. Sometimes this ejection results in elegantly symmetric patterns of glowing gas, but NGC 6326 is much less structured. This object is located in the constellation of Ara, the Altar, about 11,000 light-years from Earth,” European Space Agency officials wrote in an image description. – Tariq Malik