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.
M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
How far can you see? The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy , over two million light-years away. Without a telescope, even…
Perijove 11: Passing Jupiter
Here comes Jupiter! NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its 53-day, highly-elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. The featured video is from…
In Wolf's Cave
The mysterious blue reflection nebula found in catalogs as VdB 152 or Ced 201 really is very faint. It lies at the tip of the long dark nebula Barnard 175 in a dusty complex that…
Recycling Cassiopeia A
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After a…
The Large Cloud of Magellan
The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result,…
The Spider Nebula in Infrared
Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer ( Auriga ). The spider -shaped gas cloud on the left is…
Unusual Signal Suggests Neutron Star Destroyed by Black Hole
What created this unusual explosion? Three weeks ago, gravitational wave detectors in the USA and Europe -- the LIGO and Virgo detectors -- detected a burst of gravitational…
The Moon and Jupiter over the Alps
What are those bright lights in the sky ahead? When hiking a high mountain pass in northern Italy three weeks ago, a conjunction between our Moon and the distant planet Jupiter…
M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as dusty as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars…
Spitzer's Orion
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula , an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning about 40 light-years across the region, this…
NGC 7129 and NGC 7142
This wide-field telescopic image looks toward the constellation Cepheus and an intriguing visual pairing of dusty reflection nebula NGC 7129 (right) and open star cluster NGC…
M27: Not a Comet
While hunting for comets in the skies above 18th century France, astronomer Charles Messier diligently kept a list of the things he encountered that were definitely not comets.…
Messier 61 Close Up
Image data from the Hubble Space Telescope , the European Southern Observatory, and small telescopes on planet Earth are combined in this magnificent portrait of face-on spiral…
Dark Dust and Colorful Clouds near Antares
Why is the sky near Antares and Rho Ophiuchi so dusty yet colorful? The colors result from a mixture of objects and processes. Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight…
NGC 2170: Angel Nebula Still Life
Is this a painting or a photograph? In this classic celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 , also known as the Angel Nebula , shines near the…
Leaving Earth
What it would look like to leave planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it swung back past the Earth in 2005 on its way…
Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri
Globular star cluster Omega Centauri , also known as NGC 5139, is some 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10 million stars much older than the Sun within a…
NGC 1499: The California Nebula
Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. Our own Sun…
Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 4945
Large spiral galaxy NGC 4945 is seen edge-on near the center of this cosmic galaxy portrait . In fact, it's almost the size of our Milky Way Galaxy . NGC 4945's own dusty disk,…
The Orion You Can Almost See
Do you recognize this constellation? Although it is one of the most recognizable star groupings on the sky, this is a more full Orion than you can see -- an Orion only revealed…
Animation: Spiral Disk around a Black Hole
What would it look like to orbit a black hole? Many black holes are surrounded by swirling pools of gas known as accretion disks. These disks can be extremely hot, and much of the…
Lenticular Clouds over Mount Etna
What's happening above that volcano? Although Mount Etna is seen erupting, the clouds are not related to the eruption . They are lenticular clouds formed when moist air is forced…
Human as Spaceship
You are a spaceship soaring through the universe. So is your dog . We all carry with us trillions of microorganisms as we go through life. These multitudes of bacteria , fungi ,…
1901 Photograph: The Orion Nebula
By the turn of the 20th century advances in photography contributed an important tool for astronomers. Improving photographic materials, long exposures, and new telescope designs…
Viewing discoveries from 9 September 2019 through 17 August 2019.