Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
Browse the NASA APOD archive without needing the exact date first. Filter by media type and keep moving deeper into older images and videos.
Observatory, Mountains, Universe
The awesomeness in this image comes in layers. The closest layer, in the foreground, contains the Peak Terskol Observatory located in the northern Caucasus Mountains of Russia .…
The Sun in X-rays from NuSTAR
Why are the regions above sunspots so hot? Sunspots themselves are a bit cooler than the surrounding solar surface because the magnetic fields that create them reduce convective…
Unusual Light Pillars over Latvia
What's happening over that town? Close inspection shows these strange columns of light occur over bright lights, and so likely are light pillars that involve falling ice crystals…
The Winter Shower
Known in the north as a winter meteor shower, the 2014 Geminids rain down on this rugged, frozen landscape. The scene was recorded from the summit of Mt. Changbai along China's…
Cetus Duo M77 and NGC 1055
At the top right, large spiral galaxy NGC 1055 joins spiral Messier 77 in this sharp cosmic view toward the aquatic constellation Cetus . The narrowed, dusty appearance of edge-on…
This Comet Lovejoy
Comet Lovejoy, C/2014 Q2, is framed like a cosmic Christmas tree with starry decorations in this colorful telescopic portrait, snapped on December 16th. Its lovely coma is tinted…
IC 1795: The Fishhead Nebula
To some, this nebula looks like the head of a fish . However, this colorful cosmic portrait really features glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds in IC 1795, a star forming region…
The Cliffs of Comet ChuryumovGerasimenko
These high cliffs occur on the surface of a comet. They were discovered to be part of the dark nucleus of Comet ChuryumovGerasimenko (CG) by Rosetta , a robotic spacecraft…
The Mysterious Methane of Mars
What's creating methane on Mars? Recent measurements from the robotic Curiosity rover currently rolling across Mars indicate a surprising 10-fold increase in atmospheric methane…
Tyrrhenian Sea and Solstice Sky
Today the solstice occurs at 23:03 Universal Time , the Sun reaching its southernmost declination in planet Earth's sky . Of course, the December solstice marks the beginning of…
Apollo 11 Landing Site Panorama
Have you seen a panorama from another world lately? Assembled from high-resolution scans of the original film frames, this one sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the…
Reflections on the 1970s
The 1970s are sometimes ignored by astronomers, like this beautiful grouping of reflection nebulae in Orion - NGC 1977, NGC 1975, and NGC 1973 - usually overlooked in favor of the…
NGC 7331 and Beyond
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way . About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus , NGC 7331 was…
Geminid Fireball over Mount Balang
This was a sky to remember. While viewing the Geminids meteor shower a few days ago, a bright fireball was captured over Mt. Balang , China with particularly picturesque…
W5: Pillars of Star Formation
How do stars form? Images of the star forming region W5 like those in the infrared by NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite provide clear clues with…
The Potsdam Gravity Potato
Why do some places on Earth have higher gravity than others? Sometimes the reason is unknown. To help better understand the Earth's surface , sensitive measurements by the…
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68
Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud . Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular…
The Infrared Visible Andromeda
This remarkable synthetic color composite image was assembled from archives of visible light and infrared astronomy image data. The field of view spans the Andromeda Galaxy (M31),…
Crystals on Mars
This extreme close-up , a mosaic from the Mars Hand Lens Imager ( MAHLI ) on the Curiosity rover, spans a breathtaking 5 centimeters. It captures what appear to be elongated…
Moondog Night
In this night scene from the early hours of November 14, light from a last quarter Moon illuminates clouds above the mountaintop domes of Kitt Peak National Observatory near…
The Reddening of M71
Now known to be a globular star cluster at the tender age of 10 billion years, M71 is a mere 13,000 light-years away within the narrow boundaries of the faint constellation…
The Flame Nebula in Visible and Infrared
What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred light years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and dark dust lanes, appears, on the left,…
Aurora Shimmer, Meteor Flash
Northern Lights , or aurora borealis, haunted skies over the island of Kvaløya, near Tromsø Norway on 2009 December 13. This 30 second long exposure records their shimmering glow…
Orion Launch
Headed for two orbits of planet Earth and a splashdown in the Pacific, Orion blazed into the early morning sky on Friday at 7:05am ET. The spacecraft was launched atop a United…
Viewing discoveries from 30 December 2014 through 6 December 2014.