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.
AE Aurigae and the Flaming Star Nebula
Why is AE Aurigae called the flaming star? For one reason, the surrounding nebula IC 405 is named the Flaming Star Nebula because the region seems to harbor smoke, even though…
Facing NGC 6946
From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy , we see NGC 6946 face-on . The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away, behind a veil of…
Apollo 17: A Stereo View from Lunar Orbit
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this awesome stereo view of another world. The scene was recorded by Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan on December 11, 1972,…
When Roses Aren't Red
Not all roses are red of course , but they can still be very pretty. Likewise, the beautiful Rosette Nebula and other star forming regions are often shown in astronomical images…
Jupiter in Infrared from Hubble
Jupiter looks a bit different in infrared light. To better understand Jupiter 's cloud motions and to help NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft understand the planetary context of the…
A Partial Solar Eclipse over Buenos Aires
What's happened to top of the Sun? Last week, parts of Earth's southern hemisphere were treated to a partial solar eclipse , where the Moon blocks out part of the Sun . The…
Galaxy Formation in a Magnetic Universe
How did we get here? We know that we live on a planet orbiting a star orbiting a galaxy, but how did all of this form? To understand details better, astrophysicists upgraded the…
LL Ori and the Orion Nebula
Stars can make waves in the Orion Nebula's sea of gas and dust. This esthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis , interacting with the Orion Nebula…
Manhattan Skylines
City lights shine along the upper east side of Manahattan in this dramatic urban night skyscape from February 13. Composed from a series of digital exposures, the monochrome image…
Comet PanSTARRS is near the Edge
The comet PanSTARRS also known as the blue comet (C/2016 R2) really is near the lower left edge of this stunning, wide field view recorded on January 13. Spanning nearly 20…
Enceladus in Silhouette
One of our Solar System's most tantalizing worlds, Enceladus is backlit by the Sun in this Cassini spacecraft image from November 1, 2009. The dramatic illumination reveals the…
In the Heart of the Heart Nebula
What's that inside the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart . It's shape perhaps fitting of the Valentine's Day , this…
Car Orbiting Earth
Last week, a car orbited the Earth. The car, created by humans and robots on the Earth, was launched by the SpaceX Company to demonstrate the ability of its Falcon Heavy Rocket to…
Blue Comet Meets Blue Stars
What's that heading for the Pleiades star cluster? It appears to be Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS) , but here, appearances are deceiving. On the right and far in the background , the…
A Partial Eclipse Over Manila Bay
What's happened to the setting Sun? An eclipse! In early 2009, the Moon eclipsed part of the Sun as visible from parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia . In particular the featured…
Roadster, Starman, Planet Earth
Don't panic . It's just a spacesuited mannequin named Starman . As the sunlit crescent of planet Earth recedes in the background, Starman is comfortably seated at the wheel of a…
Total Solar Lunar Eclipse
This digitally processed and composited picture creatively compares two famous eclipses in one; the total lunar eclipse (left) of January 31 , and the total solar eclipse of…
Bow Tie Moon and Star Trails
On January 31 , a leisurely lunar eclipse was enjoyed from all over the night side of planet Earth, the first of three consecutive total eclipses of the Moon . This dramatic…
NGC 7331 Close-Up
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…
Galaxy NGC 474: Shells and Star Streams
What's happening to galaxy NGC 474? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex and unexpected given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in…
NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula Expanding
It's the bubble versus the cloud. NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula , is being pushed out by the stellar wind of massive star BD+602522 , visible in blue toward the right, inside the…
Venus and the Triply Ultraviolet Sun
An unusual type of solar eclipse occurred in 2012. Usually it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. That year, most unusually, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar…
Earthshadow and the Beehive
The Earth's dark umbral shadow is shaped like a cone extending into space . Of course its circular cross section at the distance of the Moon is more easily seen during a lunar…
Moonrise Eclipse
This atmospheric picture of a distant horizon looks toward the tall Trisul peaks of India's snowy Himalayan mountains. Taken from a remote location on January 31, bright star…
Viewing discoveries from 25 February 2018 through 2 February 2018.