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January 26 in spaceflight
Wikipedia records 5 spaceflight and astronomy events on January 26. Below are the pictures NASA published on January 26 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD5ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1934 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED6IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for January 26, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on January 26
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2026
NGC 55: A Galaxy of Nebulas
Can you see nebulas in other galaxies? Yes, some nebulas shine brightly enough -- if you know how to look. Clouds of hydrogen and oxygen emit light at very specific colors, and by isolating them, astronomers and astrophotographers can reveal structures that would otherwise be too faint to notice. This deep, 50-hour exposure highlights glowing hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) across galaxy NGC 55, viewed nearly edge-on. Also known as the String of Pearls Galaxy, NGC 55 is often compared to our Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), although NGC 55 lies much farther away at about 6.5 million light-years. The resulting image uncovers a sprinkling of emission nebulas within and sometimes above the galaxy's dusty disk, offering a detailed look at distant star-forming regions. Jigsaw Galaxy: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
© Wolfgang Promper; Text: Ogetay Kayali (MTU) — used with the credit NASA publishes
2025
The Many Tails of Comet G3 ATLAS
Why does this comet have so many tails? C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) has developed several long and intricate tails visible from Earth's southern hemisphere over the past two weeks. Many observers reported seeing the impressive comet without any optical aid above the western horizon just after sunset. At least six different tails appear in the featured image captured five days ago from the dark skies above Paranal Observatory in Chile. One possible cause for the multiple tails is dust and gas being expelled from the comet's rotating nucleus. The outward push of the Sun's complex solar wind may also play a role. The huge iceberg-like nucleus of Comet ATLAS appears to have broken up near its closest approach to the Sun two weeks ago. Unfortunately, Comet ATLAS and its tails are expected to fade significantly over the coming weeks. Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)
© Martin Mašek (FZU, Czech Academy of Sciences) & Jakub Kuřák — used with the credit NASA publishes
2024
Epsilon Tauri: Star with Planet
silon Tauri lies 146 light-years away. A K-type red giant star, epsilon Tau is cooler than the Sun, but with about 13 times the solar radius it shines with nearly 100 times the solar luminosity. A member of the Hyades open star cluster the giant star is known by the proper name Ain, and along with brighter giant star Aldebaran, forms the eyes of Taurus the Bull. Surrounded by dusty, dark clouds in Taurus, epsilon Tau is also known to have a planet. Discovered by radial velocity measurements in 2006, epsilon Tauri b is a gas giant planet larger than Jupiter with an orbital period of 1.6 years. And though the exoplanet can't be seen directly, on a dark night its parent star epsilon Tauri is easily visible to the unaided eye.
© Reg Pratt — used with the credit NASA publishes
2023
Active Galaxy NGC 1275
Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. This color composite image made from Hubble Space Telescope data recorded during 2006. It highlights the resulting galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps the filaments together? Observations indicate that the structures, pushed out from the galaxy's center by the black hole's activity, are held together by magnetic fields. Also known as Perseus A, NGC 1275 spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away.
NASA · public domain
2022
Stars, Dust, and Gas Near Antares
Why is the sky near Antares and Rho Ophiuchi so dusty yet colorful? The colors result from a mixture of objects and processes. Fine dust -- illuminated from the front by starlight -- produces blue reflection nebulae. Gaseous clouds whose atoms are excited by ultraviolet starlight produce reddish emission nebulae. Backlit dust clouds block starlight and so appear dark. Antares, a red supergiant and one of the brighter stars in the night sky, lights up the yellow-red clouds on the lower right of the featured image. The Rho Ophiuchi star system lies at the center of the blue reflection nebula on the top left. The distant globular cluster of stars M4 is visible above and to the right of Antares. These star clouds are even more colorful than humans can see, emitting light across the electromagnetic spectrum.
© Mario Cogo (Galax Lux) — used with the credit NASA publishes
2021
Central NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide
How did this strange-looking galaxy form? Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of unusual jumbles of stars, gas, and dust like NGC 1316. Inspection indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that somehow includes dark dust lanes usually found in a spiral galaxy. Detailed images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows details, however, that help in reconstructing the history of this gigantic tangle. Deep and wide images show huge collisional shells, while deep central images reveal fewer globular clusters of stars toward NGC 1316's interior. Such effects are expected in galaxies that have undergone collisions or merging with other galaxies in the past few billion years. The dark knots and lanes of dust, prominent in the featured image, indicate that one or more of the devoured galaxies were spiral galaxies. NGC 1316 spans about 50,000 light years and lies about 60 million light years away toward the constellation of the Furnace (Fornax).
NASA · public domain
What happened on January 26
1934
Hurtig & Seamon's New Burlesque Theater in New York City reopened as the Apollo Theater, becoming one of the nation's premier venues for African-American performers.
Apollo Theater ↗
1949
The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California, the largest aperture optical telescope in the world for 28 years, saw first light.
Hale Telescope ↗1949
The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming the largest aperture optical telescope (until BTA-6 is built in 1976).
Hale Telescope ↗
1962
Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon. The space probe later misses the Moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
Ranger 3 ↗
Sources and licences
Event text and thumbnails come from Wikipedia and are used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Images are drawn only from Wikimedia Commons, which does not accept non-free content — each thumbnail links to its file page, where its licence and author are recorded.
Launch records are from The Space Devs’ Launch Library 2. This archive is still being mirrored, so some days are incomplete. Pictures are NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; NASA imagery is generally not subject to copyright, but individual APOD entries are frequently the property of the photographer, and each caption says which applies.
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Cosmos — Carl Sagan
Still the best single argument for why any of this matters, and it leaves the arithmetic in. For a reader who wants the science, not just the awe.
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Pale Blue Dot — Carl Sagan
The case for leaving Earth, written by someone unsentimental about how hard that is. Suits readers who want the argument rather than the poster.
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Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
Hard-SF problem solving in The Martian's key — for anyone who liked the engineering more than the peril. The only novel on this list.
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