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.
A Hybrid Solar Eclipse over Kenya
Chasing solar eclipses can cause you to go to the most interesting places and meet the most interesting people. Almost. For example, chasing this eclipse brought this…
Mercury as Revealed by MESSENGER
Mercury had never been seen like this before. In 2008, the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft buzzed past Mercury for the second time and imaged terrain mapped previously only by…
Apollo 11: Catching Some Sun
Bright sunlight glints and long dark shadows mark this image of the lunar surface . It was taken July 20, 1969 by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong , the first to walk on the…
Phobos: Moon over Mars
A tiny moon with a scary name , Phobos emerges from behind the Red Planet in this timelapse sequence from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope . Over 22 minutes the 13…
IC 1396: Emission Nebula in Cepheus
Stunning emission nebula IC 1396 mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust clouds in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Energized by the bright central star seen here,…
Ireson Hill on Mars
What created this unusual hill on Mars? Its history has become a topic of research, but its shape and two-tone structure makes it one of the more unusual hills that the robotic…
Thunder Moon over Pisa
What's wrong with this picture? If you figure it out, you may then realize where the image was taken. The oddity lies actually in one of the buildings -- it leans. The Leaning…
Moon Shadow versus Sun Reflection
What are those lights and shadows crossing the Earth? As the featured five-second time-lapse video progresses, a full day on planet Earth is depicted as seen from Japan's…
Lightning Eclipse from the Planet of the Goats
Thunderstorms almost spoiled this view of the spectacular 2011 June 15 total lunar eclipse . Instead, storm clouds parted for 10 minutes during the total eclipse phase and…
Close-up of The Great Red Spot
On July 11 , the Juno spacecraft once again swung near to Jupiter's turbulent cloud tops in its looping 53 day orbit around the Solar System's ruling gas giant. About 11 minutes…
NGC 4449: Close-up of a Small Galaxy
Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory. Their young, blue star clusters and pink star forming regions along sweeping spiral arms are guaranteed to attract…
Full Moon and Boston Light
This well-planned telephoto timelapse captures July's Full Moon rise across outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, planet Earth . In the foreground, the historic terrestrial beacon…
Messier 63: The Sunflower Galaxy
A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is about 25 million light-years distant in the loyal constellation Canes Venatici . Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic…
Star Cluster Omega Centauri in HDR
Behold the largest ball of stars in our galaxy. Omega Centauri is packed with about 10 million stars, many older than our Sun and packed within a volume of only about 150…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: The Nuclear Ring
What's happening around the center of this spiral galaxy? Seen in total, NGC 1512 appears to be a barred spiral galaxy -- a type of spiral that has a straight bar of stars across…
Earth at Night
Can you find your favorite country or city ? Surprisingly, on this world-wide nightscape, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly…
Hidden Galaxy IC 342
Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis . A…
A View Toward M106
Big, bright, beautiful spiral, Messier 106 dominates this cosmic vista. The two degree wide telescopic field of view looks toward the well-trained constellation Canes Venatici,…
Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan
Atlas , Daphnis , and Pan are small, inner, ring moons of Saturn, shown at the same scale in this montage of images from the still Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. In fact,…
Aphelion Sunrise
On July 3rd, planet Earth reached aphelion , the farthest point in its elliptical orbit around the Sun. Each year, this day of the most distant Sun happens to occur during winter…
Celestial Fireworks: Into Star Cluster Westerlund 2
What if you could go right into a cluster where stars are forming? A one-minute, time-lapse, video visualization of just this has been made with 3D computer modeling of the region…
The Summer Triangle over the Great Wall
Have you ever seen the Summer Triangle ? The bright stars Vega , Deneb , and Altair form a large triangle on the sky that can be seen rising in the northern spring during the…
Mountains of Dust in the Carina Nebula
It's stars versus dust in the Carina Nebula and the stars are winning. More precisely, the energetic light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing…
3D Lava Falls of Mars
Get out your red/cyan glasses and gaze across lava falls of Mars. The stereo anaglyph was created by combining two images recorded by the HiRISE camera onboard Mars Reconnaissance…
Viewing discoveries from 24 July 2017 through 1 July 2017.