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.
Geology on Pluto
Pluto is coming into focus. As the robotic New Horizons spacecraft bears down on this unexplored world of the distant Solar System , new features on its surface are becoming…
Messier 43
Often imaged but rarely mentioned, Messier 43 is a large star forming region in its own right. It's just part of the star forming complex of gas and dust that includes the larger,…
5 Million Miles from Pluto
An image snapped on July 7 by the New Horizons spacecraft while just under 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) from Pluto is combined with color data in this most detailed view…
In the Company of Dione
That is not our Moon. It's Dione , and its a moon of Saturn. The robotic Cassini spacecraft took the featured image during a flyby of Saturn's cratered Moon last month. Perhaps…
The Milky Way from a Malibu Sea Cave
Whats happening outside this cave? Nothing unexpected its just the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy passing by. As the Earth turns , the band of our Galaxy appears to rotate…
Colorful Clouds Near Rho Ophiuchi
Why is the sky near Antares and Rho Ophiuchi so colorful? The colors result from a mixture of objects and processes. Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight produces…
Zeta Oph: Runaway Star
Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait . In the…
Aurora Australis
Not fireworks, these intense shimmering lights still danced across Earth's night skies late last month, seen here above the planet's geographic south pole. The stunning auroral…
Venus and Jupiter are Far
On June 30 Venus and Jupiter were actually far apart, but both appeared close in western skies at dusk. Near the culmination of this year's gorgeous conjunction , the two bright…
Venus and Jupiter are Close
On June 30, Venus and Jupiter were close in western skies at dusk. Near the culmination of this year's gorgeous conjunction , the two bright evening planets are captured in the…
Venus, Jupiter, and Noctilucent Clouds
Have you seen the passing planets yet? Today the planets Jupiter and Venus pass within half a degree of each other as seen from Earth . This conjunction , visible all over the…
An Unusual Mountain on Asteroid Ceres
What created this large mountain on asteroid Ceres? No one is yet sure. As if in anticipation of today being Asteroid Day on Earth, the robotic spacecraft Dawn in orbit around…
Sunspot Group AR 2339 Crosses the Sun
How do sunspots evolve? Large dark sunspots -- and the active regions that contain them -- may last for weeks, but all during that time they are constantly changing. Such…
All the Colors of the Sun
It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Here are all the visible colors of the Sun , produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism -like device.…
Stars of a Summer's Triangle
Rising at the start of a northern summer's night, these three bright stars form the familiar asterism known as the Summer Triangle . Altair, Deneb, and Vega are the alpha stars of…
Planet Aurora
What bizarre alien planet is this ? It's planet Earth of course, seen through the shimmering glow of aurorae from the International Space Station . About 400 kilometers (250…
Star Trails above Table Mountain
Stars trail above and urban lights sprawl below in this moonlit nightscape from Cape Town, South Africa, planet Earth . The looming form of Table Mountain almost seems to hold…
Triple Conjunction Over Galician National Park
What are those bright objects hovering over the horizon? Planets -- and the Moon. First out, the horizon featured is a shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean that occurs at the Galicia…
Sharpless 308: Star Bubble
Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is huge. Cataloged as Sharpless 2-308 it lies some 5,200 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog…
New Horizons
In three weeks, the robotic New Horizons spacecraft will reach Pluto. As the featured video makes clear, though, humanity has been on an unprecedented epoch of robotic exploration…
Rings and Seasons of Saturn
On Saturn, the rings tell you the season. On Earth, today marks a solstice , the time when the Earth's spin axis tilts directly toward the Sun. On Earth's northern hemisphere,…
Hubble's Messier 5
“Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the Serpent [Serpens] ...” begins the description of the 5th entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous…
LightSail A
Hitching a ride to low Earth orbit, LightSail A accomplished a challenging test mission, unfurling its 32 square meter mylar solar sail on June 7. This dramatic image from one of…
M64: The Black Eye Galaxy
This big, bright, beautiful spiral galaxy is Messier 64 , often called the Black Eye Galaxy or the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy for its heavy-lidded appearance in telescopic views. M64…
Viewing discoveries from 11 July 2015 through 18 June 2015.