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.
From the Northern to the Southern Cross
There is a road that connects the Northern to the Southern Cross but you have to be at the right place and time to see it. The road, as pictured here, is actually the central band…
The Umbra of Earth
The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth is called the umbra . Shaped like a cone extending into space, it has a circular cross section most easily seen during a lunar eclipse . For…
Moon Struck
Craters produced by ancient impacts on the airless Moon have long been a familiar sight. But only since the 1990s have observers began to regularly record and study optical…
Matterhorn, Moon, and Meteor
Fans of planet Earth probably recognize the Matterhorn in the foreground of this night skyscape. Famed in mountaineering history , the 4,478 meter Alpine mountain stands next to…
Orion over the Austrian Alps
Do you recognize this constellation? Through the icicles and past the mountains is Orion , one of the most identifiable star groupings on the sky and an icon familiar to humanity…
Lunar Eclipse over Cologne Cathedral
Why would a bright full Moon suddenly become dark? Because it entered the shadow of the Earth . That's what happened Sunday night as the Moon underwent a total lunar eclipse .…
InSight Lander Takes Selfie on Mars
This is what NASA's Insight lander looks like on Mars. With its solar panels , InSight is about the size of a small bus. Insight successfully landed on Mars in November with a…
A Total Lunar Eclipse Video
Tonight a bright full Moon will fade to red. Tonight's moon will be particularly bright because it is reaching its fully lit phase when it is relatively close to the Earth in its…
Total Lunar Eclipse at Moonset
The Moon slid through Earth's shadow on January 31, 2018 in a total lunar eclipse . In this time-lapse sequence of that eclipse from Portal, Arizona, USA, the partial eclipse…
Circumpolar Star Trails
As Earth spins on its axis, the stars appear to rotate around an observatory in this well-composed image from the Canary Island of Tenerife. Of course, the colorful concentric…
Cabin under the Stars
Gocka's, a family nickname for the mountain cabin, and a wooden sled from a generation past stand quietly under the stars. The single exposure image was taken on January 6 from…
IC 342: The Hidden Galaxy
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…
The Heart and Soul Nebulas
Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia ? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula ,…
Meteor and Milky Way over the Alps
Now this was a view with a thrill. From Mount Tschirgant in the Alps , you can see not only nearby towns and distant Tyrol ean peaks, but also, weather permitting, stars, nebulas,…
Tycho's Supernova Remnant in X-ray
What star created this huge puffball? What's pictured is the hot expanding nebula of Tycho's supernova remnant , the result of a stellar explosion first recorded over 400 years…
Milky Way Falls
It can be the driest place on planet Earth, but water still flows in Chile's Atacama desert, high in the mountains. After discovering this small creek with running water, the…
Partial Eclipse over Beijing
On January 6 the New Moon rose in silhouette with the Sun seen from northeastern Asia. Near maximum, the dramatic partial solar eclipse is captured in this telephoto view through…
Vela Supernova Remnant Mosaic
The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy runs through this complex and beautiful skyscape . Seen toward colorful stars near the northwestern edge of the constellation Vela (the Sails),…
Quadrantids
Named for a forgotten constellation , the Quadrantid Meteor Shower is an annual event for planet Earth's northern hemisphere skygazers It usually peaks briefly in the cold, early…
HESS Telescopes Explore the High-Energy Sky
They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of…
Stars, Meteors, and a Comet in Taurus
This was an unusual night to look in the direction of the Bull. The constellation Taurus is always well known for hosting two bright star clusters -- the Pleaides , visible on the…
A Laser Strike at the Galactic Center
Why are these people shooting a powerful laser into the center of our Galaxy? Fortunately, this is not meant to be the first step in a Galactic war . Rather, astronomers at the…
Yutu 2 on the Farside
On January 3 , the Chinese Chang'e-4 spacecraft made the first successful landing on the Moon's farside . Taken by a camera on board the lander, this image is from the landing…
Ultima Thule Rotation Gif
Ultima Thule is the most distant world explored by a spacecraft from Earth. In the dim light 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, the New Horizons spacecraft captured these two…
Viewing discoveries from 27 January 2019 through 4 January 2019.