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 Traffic in Taurus
There's a traffic jam in Taurus lately. On April 1, this celestial frame from slightly hazy skies over Tapiobicske, Hungary recorded an impressive pile up toward the zodiacal…
Venus and the Pleiades in April
Venus is currently the brilliant evening star. Shared around world , in tonight's sky Venus will begin to wander across the face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster. This digital…
Asteroid or Potato?
Is this asteroid Arrokoth or a potato? Perhaps, after all the data was beamed back to Earth from NASA's robotic New Horizons spacecraft , the featured high resolution image of…
The Galactic Center from Radio to X-ray
In how many ways does the center of our Galaxy glow? This enigmatic region, about 26,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer ( Sagittarius ), glows in every…
The Colors of Saturn from Cassini
What creates Saturn's colors? The featured picture of Saturn only slightly exaggerates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The image was taken in…
A 212-Hour Exposure of Orion
The constellation of Orion is much more than three stars in a row. It is a direction in space that is rich with impressive nebulas. To better appreciate this well-known swath of…
Stars Trail over Ragusa
In trying times, stars still trail in the night . Taken on March 14, this night skyscape was made by combining 230 exposures each 15 seconds long to follow the stars' circular…
A Little Drop of Galaxy
A drop of water seems to hold an entire galaxy in this creative macro-astrophotograph . In the imaginative work of cosmic nature photography a close-up lens was used to image a…
Andromeda Station
This surreal picture isn't from a special effects sci-fi movie. It is a digital composite of frames of the real Andromeda Galaxy , also known as M31, rising over a real mountain.…
Star Forming Region S106
Massive star IRS 4 is beginning to spread its wings. Born only about 100,000 years ago, material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 2-106…
A Black Hole Disrupts a Passing Star
What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? If the star directly impacts a massive black hole , then the star falls in completely -- and everything vanishes. More likely ,…
From the Pleiades to the Eridanus Loop
If you stare at an interesting patch of sky long enough, will it look different? In the case of Pleiades and Hyades star clusters -- and surrounding regions -- the answer is: yes,…
Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano
These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna) appears so large here because she is being photographed through a…
Comet ATLAS and the Mighty Galaxies
Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4 was discovered by the NASA funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System , the last comet discovery reported in 2019. Now growing brighter in northern…
Morning, Planets, Moon and Montreal
Dawn's early light came to Montreal, northern planet Earth, on March 18, the day before the vernal equinox . At the end of that nearly equal night the Moon stands above a dense…
M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
In 1716 , English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is…
Anticrepuscular Rays over Florida
What's happening behind those clouds? Although the scene may appear somehow supernatural , nothing more unusual is occurring than a Sun setting on the other side of the sky.…
M77: Spiral Galaxy with an Active Center
What's happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? The face-on galaxy lies a mere 47 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Sea Monster ( Cetus ). At…
A Moon Dressed Like Saturn
Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn't -- what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon . The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of…
The Snows of Churyumov-Gerasimenko
You couldn't really be caught in this blizzard while standing by a cliff on Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Orbiting the comet -- frequently abbreviated as 67P or CG -- in June of 2016,…
Moonrise and Mountain Shadow
What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it…
Starry Night by Jean-Francois Millet
A dramatic nocturnal landscape from around 1850 , this oil painting is the work of French artist Jean-Francois Millet . In the dark and atmospheric night sky are shooting stars,…
Falcon 9 Boostback
Short star trails appear in this single 84 second long exposure, taken on March 6 from a rotating planet. The remarkable scene also captures the flight of a Falcon 9 rocket and…
An Extreme Black Hole Outburst
Astronomers believe they have now found the most powerful example of a black hole outburst yet seen in our Universe. The composite , false-color featured image is of a cluster of…
Viewing discoveries from 3 April 2020 through 11 March 2020.