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.
Interstellar Interloper 2I/Borisov
After the 2017 detecton of 1I/'Oumuamua, comet 2I/Borisov has become the second recognized interstellar interloper. Like 'Oumuamua, Borisov's measured hyperbolic trajectory and…
Moons of Saturn
On July 29, 2011 the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera took this snapshot and captured 5 of Saturn's moons , from just above the ringplane. Left to right are small moons…
BHB2007: A Baby Binary Star in Formation
How do binary stars form? To help find out, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array ( ALMA ) recently captured one of the highest resolution images yet taken of a binary star system in…
The Galaxy Above
Have you contemplated your home galaxy lately? If your sky looked like this, perhaps you'd contemplate it more often! The featured picture is actually a composite of two images…
Andromeda before Photoshop
What does the Andromeda galaxy really look like? The featured image shows how our Milky Way Galaxy 's closest major galactic neighbor really appears in a long exposure through…
A Stellar Jewel Box: Open Cluster NGC 290
Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. The…
Interplanetary Earth
In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant…
Planet Earth at Blue Hour
Nature photographers and other fans of planet Earth always look forward to the blue hour . That's the transition in twilight , just before sunrise or after sunset, when the Sun is…
Mid-Air Meteor and Milky Way
On September 24, a late evening commercial flight from Singapore to Australia offered stratospheric views of the southern hemisphere's night sky, if you chose a window seat . In…
NGC 7714: Starburst after Galaxy Collision
Is this galaxy jumping through a giant ring of stars ? Probably not. Although the precise dynamics behind the featured image is yet unclear, what is clear is that the pictured…
Sprite Lightning in HD
This phenomenon occurs in the sky over our heads, not the sea. It is a type of lightning known as red sprite, and rarely has it ever been photographed in this detail. Even though…
Io Eclipse Shadow on Jupiter from Juno
What's that dark spot on Jupiter? It's the shadow of Jupiter 's most volcanic moon Io . Since Jupiter shines predominantly by reflected sunlight, anything that blocks that light…
The Horsehead Nebula
The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the red emission nebula in the center of the above photograph. The…
Jupiter and the Moons
After sunset on October 3, some of the Solar System's largest moons stood low along the western horizon with the largest planet . Just after nightfall, a pairing of the Moon…
InSight on a Cloudy Day
Clouds drift through the sky as the light fades near sunset in this three frame animated gif. The scene was captured on sol 145 beginning around 6:30pm local time by a camera on…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 18 October 2019 through 25 September 2019.