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August 5 in spaceflight
Wikipedia records 4 spaceflight and astronomy events on August 5. Below are the pictures NASA published on August 5 in 6 different years — each one taken or released on this exact date.
Recorded events
IN THE RECORD4ENTRIES
Spaceflight and astronomy entries from Wikipedia's record of this date, oldest first — from 1888 onward.
Pictures from this date
PUBLISHED6IMAGES
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 5, one per year. Some are public domain and some belong to the photographer — each says which.
Published on August 5
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, for this calendar date in each of the last several years.
2026
Spokes on Saturn's B Ring
Don’t get spooked by Saturn’s ghostly spokes! Today we feature a nearly two-hour timelapse of Saturn and its rings looping forwards and backwards. If you look closely, a ghoulish shadow appears and disappears as Saturn’s B ring rotates. Decades of observation with Voyager 2, Cassini, and Hubble show the appearance of Saturn’s spokes varies with the planet’s seasons. Like Earth, Saturn’s spin axis is tilted compared to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. During Saturn’s equinox, the rings are less tilted toward the Sun and they receive sunlight at a shallower angle. Saturn’s spokes may be electrically charged dust and ice temporarily levitated above the rings by electromagnetic forces. It is still uncertain, but the ring plasma and charge environment may be influenced by changing ultraviolet illumination, meteoroid impacts, or indirect effects from interactions between the solar wind and the planet’s magnetic field. Note: The text of this APOD has been revised. Find dark skies and look up this August to witness the Perseid meteor shower uninhibited by the Moon!
© Brad Croslin Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II) — used with the credit NASA publishes
2025
NGC 6072: A Complex Planetary Nebula from Webb
Why is this nebula so complex? The Webb Space Telescope has imaged a nebula in great detail that is thought to have emerged from a Sun-like star. NGC 6072 has been resolved into one of the more unusual and complex examples of planetary nebula. The featured image is in infrared light with the red color highlighting cool hydrogen gas. Study of previous images of NGC 6072 indicated several likely outflows and two disks inside the jumbled gas, while the new Webb image resolves new features likely including one disk's edge protruding on the central left. A leading origin hypothesis holds that the nebula's complexity is caused or enhanced by multiple outbursts from a star in a multi-star system near the center.
NASA · public domain
2024
Milky Way Over Tunisia
That's no moon. On the ground, that's the Lars Homestead in Tunisia. And that's not just any galaxy. That's the central band of our own Milky Way galaxy. Last, that's not just any meteor. It is a bright fireball likely from last year's Perseids meteor shower. The featured image composite combines consecutive exposures taken by the same camera from the same location. This year's Perseids peak during the coming weekend is expected to show the most meteors after the first quarter moon sets, near midnight. To best experience a meteor shower, you should have clear and dark skies, a comfortable seat, and patience.
© Makrem Larnaout — used with the credit NASA publishes
2023
NGC 1360: The Robin's Egg Nebula
This pretty nebula lies some 1,500 light-years away, its shape and color in this telescopic view reminiscent of a robin's egg. The cosmic cloud spans about 3 light-years, nestled securely within the boundaries of the southern constellation Fornax. Recognized as a planetary nebula, egg-shaped NGC 1360 doesn't represent a beginning though. Instead it corresponds to a brief and final phase in the evolution of an aging star. In fact, visible at the center of the nebula, the central star of NGC 1360 is known to be a binary star system likely consisting of two evolved white dwarf stars, less massive but much hotter than the Sun. Their intense and otherwise invisible ultraviolet radiation has stripped away electrons from the atoms in their mutually surrounding gaseous shroud. The predominant blue-green hue of NGC 1360 seen here is the strong emission produced as electrons recombine with doubly ionized oxygen atoms.
© Dong Liang — used with the credit NASA publishes
2022
A Beautiful Trifid
The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate three different types of astronomical nebulae; red emission nebulae dominated by light from hydrogen atoms, blue reflection nebulae produced by dust reflecting starlight, and dark nebulae where dense dust clouds appear in silhouette. But the red emission region, roughly separated into three parts by obscuring dust lanes, is what lends the Trifid its popular name. Pillars and jets sculpted by newborn stars, above and right of the emission nebula's center, appear in famous Hubble Space Telescope close-up images of the region. The Trifid Nebula is about 40 light-years across. Too faint to be seen by the unaided eye, it almost covers the area of a full moon in planet Earth's sky. Open star cluster M21 just peeks into this telescopic field of view along the bottom right edge of the frame.
© Vikas Chander — used with the credit NASA publishes
2021
Tycho and Clavius
South is up in this detailed telescopic view across the Moon's rugged southern highlands. Captured on July 20, the lunar landscape features the Moon's young and old, the large craters Tycho and Clavius. About 100 million years young, Tycho is the sharp-walled 85 kilometer diameter crater near center, its 2 kilometer tall central peak in bright sunlight and dark shadow. Debris ejected during the impact that created Tycho still make it the stand out lunar crater when the Moon is near full, producing a highly visible radiating system of light streaks, bright rays that extend across much of the lunar near side. In fact, some of the material collected at the Apollo 17 landing site, about 2,000 kilometers away, likely originated from the Tycho impact. One of the oldest and largest craters on the Moon's near side, 225 kilometer diameter Clavius is due south (above) of Tycho. Clavius crater's own ray system resulting from its original impact event would have faded long ago. The old crater's worn walls and smooth floor are now overlayed by smaller craters from impacts that occurred after Clavius was formed. Observations by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) published in 2020 found water at Clavius. Of course both young Tycho and old Clavius craters are lunar locations in the science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
© Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau — used with the credit NASA publishes
What happened on August 5
1888
Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km (66 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen.
Bertha Benz ↗1888
Bertha Benz drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance automobile trip, commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route since 2008.
Bertha Benz ↗
2011
NASA launched the Juno probe to Jupiter as part of the New Frontiers program.
Juno (spacecraft) ↗
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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