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.
Video: Perseverance Landing on Mars
What would it look like to land on Mars? To better monitor the instruments involved in the Entry, Decent, and Landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars last week, cameras with…
Moon Rising Between Starships
What's that on either side of the Moon? Starships . Specifically, they are launch-and-return reusable rockets being developed by SpaceX to lift cargo and eventually humans from…
NGC 2244: A Star Cluster in the Rosette Nebula
In the heart of the Rosette Nebula lies a bright open cluster of stars that lights up the nebula. The stars of NGC 2244 formed from the surrounding gas only a few million years…
Perseverance: How to Land on Mars
Slung beneath its rocket powered descent stage Perseverance hangs only a few meters above the martian surface, captured here moments before its February 18 touchdown on the Red…
Mars Perseverance Sol 0
After a 203 day interplanetary voyage, and seven minutes of terror, Perseverance has landed on Mars . Confirmation of the successful landing at Jezero crater was announced from…
Swiss Alps, Martian Sky
Taken on February 6 , this snowy mountain and skyscape was captured near Melchsee-Frutt, central Switzerland, planet Earth. The reddish daylight and blue tinted glow around the…
Sun Pillar with Upper Tangent Arc
This was not a typical sun pillar. Just after sunrise two weeks ago in Providence , Rhode Island , USA , a photographer, looking out his window, was suddenly awestruck. The…
Perseverance: Seven Minutes to Mars
How hard is it to land safely on Mars? So hard that many more attempts have failed than succeeded. The next attempt will be on Thursday. The main problem is that the Martian…
Landing on Mars: Seven Minutes of Terror
Starting Thursday, there may be an amazing new robotic explorer on Mars. Or there may be a new pile of junk. It all likely depends on things going correctly in the minutes after…
Long Stem Rosette Nebula
Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission…
Stereo Eros
Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 433 Eros . Orbiting the Sun once every 1.8 years, the near-Earth asteroid is named for the Greek god of love. Still, its…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1350
This gorgeous island universe lies about 85 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Fornax . Inhabited by young blue star clusters, the tightly wound spiral arms…
Cygnus Mosaic 2010 - 2020
In brush strokes of interstellar dust and glowing gas, this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the…
Firing Lasers to Tame the Sky
Why do stars twinkle? Our atmosphere is to blame as pockets of slightly off-temperature air, in constant motion, distort the light paths from distant astronomical objects.…
Flashes of the Crab Pulsar
It somehow survived an explosion that would surely have destroyed our Sun. Now it is spins 30 times a second and is famous for the its rapid flashes. It is the Crab Pulsar, the…
WR23 and Interstellar Clouds in Carina
Stars can be like artists. With interstellar gas as a canvas, a massive and tumultuous Wolf-Rayet star has created the picturesque ruffled half-circular filaments called WR23, on…
Blue Straggler Stars in Globular Cluster M53
If our Sun were part of this star cluster, the night sky would glow like a jewel box of bright stars. This cluster, known as M53 and cataloged as NGC 5024, is one of about 250…
A Northern Winter Night
Snow blankets the ground in this serene forest and sky view. Assembled in a 360 degree panoramic projection, the mosaicked frames were captured at January's end along a quiet…
Apollo 14 Heads for Home
Fifty years ago this Sunday (February 7, 1971), the crew of Apollo 14 left lunar orbit and headed for home . They watched this Earthrise from their command module Kitty Hawk. With…
Apollo 14: A View from Antares
Fifty years ago this Friday, Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon. Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell snapped a series of photos of the lunar surface…
Found on the Moon: Candidate for Oldest Known Earth Rock
Was the oldest known rock on Earth found on the Moon? Quite possibly. The story opens with the Apollo 14 lunar mission. Lunar sample 14321, a large rock found in Cone crater) by…
A Colorful Quadrantid Meteor
Meteors can be colorful. While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can. Pictured is a Quadrantids meteor captured by camera over Missouri , USA , early…
Lunar Halo over Snowy Trees
Have you ever seen a halo around the Moon ? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal…
Asteroids in the Distance
Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially…
Viewing discoveries from 23 February 2021 through 31 January 2021.