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Now Reading: For you, Valentine. Heart photos from nature

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    For you, Valentine. Heart photos from nature

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For you, Valentine. Heart photos from nature

editorEarthSky7 hours ago2 Views

For you, Valentine. Heart photos from nature

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

Happy Valentine’s Day! We’re sharing the love by celebrating some of the many heart-shaped objects you can find from way out in the depths of space to closer to our neighborhood in the solar system to right here on Earth.

Heart shapes in space

A heart shape formed by 2 merging galaxies with long tails, in a field of glittering stars.
The 2 merging Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038 and NGC 4039) form a shape like a heart. Long tails stream outward as a result of the merger. Our universe is no stranger to heart shapes in nature. Image via ESA/ Hubble/ Robert Gendler.
A red heart shape made of gas and dust with scattered stars.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Andy Dungan near Cotopaxi, Colorado, captured this telescopic view of the Heart Nebula on December 25, 2025. Thank you, Andy! The Heart Nebula lies 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. It gets its heart shape from hot stars at the center that are emanating radiation.
A beige and black planet in space with a large heart-shaped light area at bottom.
We love Pluto, too! The New Horizons mission, which swept closest to Pluto on July 13, 2015, revealed unique surface markings including this light-colored area that traces out a huge heart on the dwarf planet. Image via NASA/ APL/ SwRI.
Orbital view of 10 varied heart-shaped craters in pinkish landscapes.
Mars has a lot of heart! These 10 images of craters with distinctive heart shapes were taken by the Mars Global Surveyor between 2001 and 2004. Image via NASA/ JPL/ Malin Space Science Systems.
Rocky gray ground with a shallow hole with the shape of a heart, and there are space-suited legs at the top of the image.
Let’s show a little love to this petite heart-shaped depression in the moon’s surface, photographed during the Apollo 12 extravehicular activity on November 19, 1969. The legs of astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. can be seen in the background. Image via NASA.

Finding love on Earth

A heart-shaped island surrounded by blue water, seen from above.
Back down on Earth, we find this heart-shaped island in the Republic of Croatia that’s just 164 feet (50 meters) wide. It’s Galesnjak, nicknamed Lover’s Island. This lovely shot was taken by ALOS, Japan’s Earth observation satellite. Image via ESA/ Arya Stone/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
A tall shore rock with a heart-shaped hole through it, giving a view of the ocean.
This was the famous heart-shaped hole in the rock in Maui, Hawaii. Tamara Bravo captured the Nakalele Blowhole in July 2019, before it was destroyed by the relentless pounding of the waves in January 2020. Image via Tamara Bravo/ Unsplash.
Pink heart-shaped blossoms hanging from an arc-shaped stem.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Laura Norman shot this photo on April 12, 2025, in Dayton, Ohio. Thank you, Laura! Heart-shaped leaves are common on Earth, and sometimes you can find heart-shaped blooms, too, such as this bleeding heart plant.
Swans on a pond with 2 holding heads together, their necks making a heart shape.
Part of a swan’s courtship ritual is to face each other and bow their heads, forming a heart shape with their necks. Swans mate for life. Image via Sarka Krnavkova/ Unsplash.

Bottom line: The shape of hearts is ubiquitous in the universe, as we can see in these photos of small petals on Earth to galaxies in the distant universe.

The post For you, Valentine. Heart photos from nature first appeared on EarthSky.

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