NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for Aug. 16, 2026 featured a 16-image panorama taken in 2014 showing the Milky Way arching above Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. The foreground is Silex Spring, a colorful pool about 10 meters across, artificially illuminated; the image's colors come from layers of bacteria growing in the hot spring.

According to the accompanying explanation, steam rises from the spring, heated by underground magma associated with the Yellowstone Hotspot. The central band of the Milky Way, described as lit by billions of stars, is unrelated and far in the distance. The entry also notes that about 640,000 years ago the hotspot caused a supervolcanic eruption, and that another such eruption would affect a large part of North America.

The image was credited to Dave Lane. The page's authors and editors were listed as Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti and Keighley Rockcliffe.