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 Cone Nebula from Hubble
Stars are forming in the gigantic dust pillar called the Cone Nebula. Cones, pillars , and majestic flowing shapes abound in stellar nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust…
Apollo 14: A View from Antares
Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon on February 5, 1971. Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell snapped a series of photos of the lunar surface while…
NGC 1893 and the Tadpoles of IC 410
This cosmic view shows off an otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under clear Netherlands skies with telescope and narrowband filters. Above and right of center you…
NGC 1365: Majestic Island Universe
Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the faint but heated…
Camera Orion Rising
What does Orion rising look like to a camera? During this time of the year, the famous constellation is visible to the southeast just after sunset. From most Earth ly locations,…
SLIM Lands on the Moon
New landers are on the Moon. Nearly two weeks ago, Japan 's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) released two rovers as it descended, before its main lander touched down…
The Pleiades: Seven Dusty Sisters
The well-known Pleiades star cluster is slowly destroying part of a passing cloud of gas and dust. The Pleiades is the brightest open cluster of stars on Earth's sky and can be…
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,…
Full Observatory Moon
A popular name for January's full moon in the northern hemisphere is the Full Wolf Moon. As the new year's first full moon, it rises over Las Campanas Observatory in this dramatic…
Epsilon Tauri: Star with Planet
Epsilon Tauri lies 146 light-years away. A K-type red giant star, epsilon Tau is cooler than the Sun, but with about 13 times the solar radius it shines with nearly 100 times the…
Jyväskylä in the Sky
You might not immediately recognize this street map of a neighborhood in Jyväskylä , Finland, planet Earth . But that's probably because the map was projected into the night sky…
Earth and Moon from Beyond
What do the Earth and Moon look like from beyond the Moon? Although frequently photographed together , the familiar duo was captured with this unusual perspective in late 2022 by…
Deep Nebulas: From Seagull to California
How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here is a test: see if you can find some well-known…
Shadows of Mountain and Moon
Can the Moon and a mountain really cast similar shadows? Yes, but the division between light and dark does not have to be aligned. Pictured, a quarter moon was captured above the…
The Upper Michigan Blizzard of 1938
Yes, but can your blizzard do this? In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan 's Storm of the Century in 1938, some snow drifts reached the level of utility poles . Nearly a meter of new…
Falcon Heavy Boostback Burn
The December 28 night launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida marked the fifth launch for the rocket's reusable side boosters. About 2 minutes 20…
Jupiter over 2 Hours and 30 Minutes
Jupiter, our Solar System's ruling gas giant, is also the fastest spinning planet , rotating once in less than 10 hours. The gas giant doesn't rotate like a solid body though. A…
Northern Lights from the Stratosphere
Northern lights shine in this night skyview from planet Earth's stratosphere , captured on January 15. The single, 5 second exposure was made with a hand-held camera on board an…
America and the Sea of Serenity
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo view of another world. The scene was recorded by Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan on December 11, 1972, one orbit…
The Orion You Can Almost See
Do you recognize this constellation? Although it is one of the most recognizable star groupings on the sky, this is a more full Orion than you can see -- an Orion only revealed…
Star Cluster IC 348 from Webb
Sometimes, it's the stars that are the hardest to see that are the most interesting. IC 348 is a young star cluster that illuminates surrounding filamentary dust. The stringy and…
Dragon Aurora over Iceland
Have you ever seen a dragon in the sky? Although real flying dragons don't exist, a huge dragon-shaped aurora developed in the sky over Iceland in 2019 . The aurora was caused by…
Circling the Sun
Earth's orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it's an ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year,…
Good Morning Moon
Yesterday, the Moon was New . But on January 9, early morning risers around planet Earth were treated to the sight of an old Moon, low in the east as the sky grew bright before…
Viewing discoveries from 4 February 2024 through 12 January 2024.