February 25, 2026
The universe is brighter with you in it. Happy birthday.
Birthday · February 25, 2026
A little universe, just for you
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Selected image source ↗ APOD published February 25, 2026. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Balick (U. Washington). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Behind the original result
The Egg Nebula from the Hubble Telescope
Original APOD · February 25, 2026 ↗Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.
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ver wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core. Light beams emanate from that blocked core, escaping through holes carved in the older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the star’s poles. Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!) phase of the star’s evolution, making this an egg-cellent image to study! APOD Front Page: apod.nasa.gov
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Balick (U. Washington)
Explore February 25 in other years · 31 APOD entries, 1996–2026
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