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.
NGC 3324 in Carina
This bright cosmic cloud was sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from the hot young stars of open cluster NGC 3324. With dust clouds in silhouette against its glowing atomic…
A View Toward M101
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least . About 170,000 light-years across, this…
Perseverance Valley Panorama
Mars exploration rover Opportunity's parting panorama from Perseverance Valley spans 360 degrees in this false color mosaic. The scene is composed of 354 individual images…
Highlights of the North Spring Sky
What can you see in the night sky this season? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for Earth 's northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, early…
Touchdown on Asteroid Ryugu
Last month, humanity bounced a robot off an asteroid. The main reason was to collect a surface sample. Despite concern over finding a safely reboundable touchdown spot, Japan's…
The Central Magnetic Field of the Cigar Galaxy
Are galaxies giant magnets? Yes, but the magnetic fields in galaxies are typically much weaker than on Earth's surface, as well as more complex and harder to measure. Recently,…
Moonrise Through Mauna Kea's Shadow
How can the Moon rise through a mountain? It cannot -- what was photographed here is a moonrise through the shadow of a large volcano . The volcano is Mauna Kea , Hawai'i , USA ,…
Crescent Enceladus
Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured…
Stardust and Starlight in M78
Interstellar dust clouds and bright nebulae abound in the fertile constellation of Orion. One of the brightest, M78 , is near the center in this colorful telescopic view, covering…
Sharpless 249 and the Jellyfish Nebula
Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught in this alluring telescopic field of view. The entire scene is a two panel mosaic constructed using narrowband image…
A February without Sunspots
Where have all the sunspots gone? Last month the total number of spots that crossed our Sun was ... zero . Well below of the long term monthly average, the Sun's surface has…
X-Ray Superbubbles in Galaxy NGC 3079
What created these huge galactic superbubbles? Two of these unusual bubbles , each spanning thousands of light-years , were recently discovered near the center of spiral galaxy…
Celestial Alignment over Sicilian Shore
This was a sunrise to remember. About a month ago, just before the dawn of the Sun , an impressive alignment of celestial objects was on display to the east. Pictured, brightest…
The Orion Bullets
Why are bullets of gas shooting out of the Orion Nebula? Nobody is yet sure. First discovered in 1983, each bullet is actually about the size of our Solar System , and moving at…
NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula
The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects . Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years, NGC 6302 is no exception. With…
A Charioteer's Comet
Still racing across planet Earth's night skies, Comet Iwamoto (C/2018 Y1) shares this pretty telescopic field of view with stars and nebulae of northern constellation Auriga, the…
Sharpest Ultima Thule
On January 1, New Horizons swooped to within 3,500 kilometers of the Kuiper Belt world known as Ultima Thule . That's about 3 times closer than its July 2015 closest approach to…
Magnetic Orion
Can magnetism affect how stars form? Recent analysis of Orion data from the HAWC+ instrument on the airborne SOFIA observatory indicate that, at times, it can. HAWC+ is able to…
Simulation TNG50: A Galaxy Cluster Forms
How do clusters of galaxies form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving computer simulations are created to help find out. A recent effort is TNG50 from…
Red Sprite Lightning over Kununurra
What are those red filaments in the sky? It is a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago: red sprites . Recent research has shown that following a powerful…
The Expanding Echoes of Supernova 1987A
Can you find supernova 1987A? It isn't hard -- it occurred at the center of the expanding bullseye pattern). Although this stellar detonation was first seen in 1987, light from SN…
The Stars of the Triangulum Galaxy
Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, stars of the Triangulum Galaxy are resolved in this sharp mosaic from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys ( ACS ). The…
NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge
Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours…
Reflections on vdB 9
Centered in a well-composed celestial still life, pretty, blue vdB 9 is the 9th object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this telescopic…
Viewing discoveries from 16 March 2019 through 21 February 2019.