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.
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
How will humanity first learn of extraterrestrial life ? One possibility is to find it under the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus . A reason to think that life may exist…
Edwin Hubble Discovers the Universe
How big is our universe? This very question, among others , was debated by two leading astronomers 100 years ago today in what has become known as astronomy's Great Debate . Many…
Hubble's Cosmic Reef
These bright ridges of interstellar gas and dust are bathed in energetic starlight. With its sea of young stars, the massive star-forming region NGC 2014 has been dubbed the…
Around the World at Night
Watch this video. In only a minute or so you can explore the night skies around planet Earth through a compilation of stunning timelapse sequences. The presentation will take you…
Lyrid Meteor Streak
Earth's annual Lyrid Meteor Shower peaked before dawn yesterday, as our fair planet plowed through debris from the tail of long-period comet Thatcher. In crisp, clear and moonless…
Planet Earth at Twilight
No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth . Instead, the shadow line or terminator is…
Eye on the Milky Way
Have you ever had stars in your eyes ? It appears that the eye on the left does, and moreover it appears to be gazing at even more stars. The featured 27-frame mosaic was taken…
IC 2944: The Running Chicken Nebula
To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944 , the Running…
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Cassini Approaches Saturn
What would it look like to approach Saturn in a spaceship? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along…
Just Another Day on Aerosol Earth
It was just another day on aerosol Earth. For August 23, 2018, the identification and distribution of aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere is shown in this dramatic, planet-wide…
The Windmill and the Star Trails
Stars can't turn these old wooden arms, but it does look like they might in this scene from a rotating planet . The well-composed night skyscape was recorded from Garafia, a…
Comet ATLAS Breaks Up
Cruising through the inner solar system, Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) has apparently fragmented . Multiple separate condensations within its diffuse coma are visible in this telescopic…
A Cosmic Triangle
It was an astronomical triple play. Setting on the left, just after sunset near the end of last month, was our Moon -- showing a bright crescent phase. Setting on the right was…
NGC 253: The Silver Coin Galaxy
NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in smalltelescopes, it is more formally known as…
A Sailing Stone across Death Valley
How did this big rock end up on this strange terrain? One of the more unusual places here on Earth occurs inside Death Valley , California , USA . There a dried lakebed named…
The Horsehead Nebula in Infrared from Hubble
While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the…
Venus and the Pleiades in April
Shared around world in early April skies Venus, our brilliant evening star, wandered across the face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster. This timelapse image follows the path of…
Full Moon of Spring
From home this Full Moon looked bright . Around our fair planet it rose as the Sun set on April 7/8, the first Full Moon after the vernal equinox and the start of northern…
A Flow of Time
This surreal timelapse, landscape, panorama spans predawn, blue hour, and sunrise skies. Close to the start of planet Earth's northern hemisphere spring, the flow of time was…
Country Sky versus City Sky
Dark skies are disappearing from the world. With modernization comes artificial lighting that brightens the night. While these lights allow modern human s to see, much light is…
A Path North
What happens if you keep going north? The direction north on the Earth , the place on your horizon below the northern spin pole of the Earth -- around which other stars appear to…
NGC 1672: Barred Spiral Galaxy from Hubble
Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar . Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured…
Color the Universe
Wouldn't it be fun to color in the universe? If you think so, please accept this famous astronomical illustration as a preliminary substitute. You, your friends , your parents or…
Venus and the Sisters
After wandering about as far from the Sun on the sky as Venus can get, the brilliant evening star is crossing paths with the sister stars of the Pleiades cluster. Look west after…
Viewing discoveries from 27 April 2020 through 4 April 2020.