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.
The Hydrogen Clouds of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum…
Molecular Clouds in the Carina Nebula
They are not alive -- but they are dying. The unusual forms found in the Carina nebula , a few of which are featured here, might best be described as evaporating . Energetic light…
Black Hole Safety Video
If you were a small one-eyed monster, would you want to visit a black hole? Well the one in this video does -- but should it? No, actually, but since our little friend is…
Orion Rising over Brazil
Have you seen Orion lately? The next few months will be the best for seeing this familiar constellation as it rises continually earlier in the night. However, Orion's stars and…
MyCn 18: The Engraved Hourglass Planetary Nebula
Do you see the hourglass shape -- or does it see you? If you can picture it, the rings of MyCn 18 trace the outline of an hourglass -- although one with an unusual eye in its…
An Analemma of the Sun
This week the equinox found the Sun near the middle, but not at the crossing point, of an analemma in its annual trek through planet Earth's skies. In this scenic view , that…
The Annotated Galactic Center
The center of our Milky Way galaxy can be found some 26,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius . Even on a dark night, you can't really see it though. Gaze in…
Da Vinci Rise
An old Moon rose this morning, its waning sunlit crescent shining just above the eastern horizon before sunrise. But earthshine , light reflected from a bright planet Earth, lit…
The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars
The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070, the official designation, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust . The…
Sand Dunes Thawing on Mars
What are these strange shapes on Mars? Defrosting sand dunes. As Spring dawned on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, dunes of sand near the pole, as pictured here in late May by…
Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice
Today is an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. Tomorrow, and every day until the next equinox , the night will be longer than the day in Earth's northern hemisphere,…
Eye Sky a Dragon
What do you see when you look into this sky? In the center, in the dark, do you see a night sky filled with stars? Do you see a sunset to the left? Clouds all around? Do you see…
The Tulip in the Swan
Framing a bright emission region, this telescopic view looks out across a pretty field of stars along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, toward the nebula rich constellation…
Saturn at Night
Still bright in planet Earth's night skies, good telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it a star at star parties . But this stunning view of Saturn's rings…
Along the Western Veil
Delicate in appearance , these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, are draped across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus. They form the western part of the Veil…
Gigantic Jet Lightning over India
Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this? While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught…
Water Vapor Discovered on Distant Exoplanet
Where else might life exist? One of humanity's great outstanding questions, locating planets where extrasolar life might survive took a step forward recently with the discovery of…
A Lunar Corona over Turin
What are those colorful rings around the Moon? A corona . Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the quantum…
A Long Storm System on Saturn
It was one of the largest and longest lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen in late 2010, the above cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn…
Little Planet to Exoplanets
Of course this little planet is really planet Earth in a digitally stitched 360 x 180 degree mosaic captured high in the Chilean Atacama desert. The seemingly large domes house…
A Harvest Moon
Famed in festival, story, and song the best known full moon is the Harvest Moon . For northern hemisphere dwellers that's a traditional name of the full moon nearest the September…
The Iris Nebula in a Field of Dust
These cosmic dust clouds drift some 1,300 light-years away along the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. The beautiful Iris Nebula , also known as NGC 7023, blossoms…
IC 1805: The Heart Nebula
What energizes the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart . The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most…
Pluto in True Color
What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015,…
Viewing discoveries from 3 October 2019 through 10 September 2019.