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.
Stars and Dust in the Pacman Nebula
Stars can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular cloud s from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are…
LDN 1471: A Windblown Star Cavity
What is the cause of this unusual parabolic structure? This illuminated cavity, known as LDN 1471 , was created by a newly forming star , seen as the bright source at the peak of…
Pluto at Night
The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene . In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant…
Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3
Put on your red/blue glasses and gaze across the western Ocean of Storms on the surface of the Moon. The 3D anaglyph features Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visiting the Surveyor…
IC 348 and Barnard 3
A great nebulous region near bright star omicron Persei offers this study in cosmic contrasts. Captured in the telescopic frame is a colorful complex of dust, gas, and stars…
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365 from Webb
A mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That's twice…
NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula
How was the Crescent Nebula created? Looking like an emerging space cocoon , the Crescent Nebula, visible in the center of the featured image , was created by the brightest star…
The Unusual Tails of Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas
What created an unusual dark streak in Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas's tail? Some images of the bright comet during mid-October not only caught its impressively long tail and its thin…
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars . Named Valles Marineris , the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as…
Neptune at Night
Ice giant Neptune is faint in Earth's night sky. Some 30 times farther from the Sun than our fair planet, telescopes are needed to catch a glimpse of the dim and distant world.…
Helping Hand in Cassiopeia
Drifting near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy these dusty molecular clouds seem to extend a helping hand on a cosmic scale. Part of a local complex of star-forming interstellar…
Shell Galaxies in Pisces
This spectacular intergalactic skyscape features Arp 227, a curious system of galaxies from the 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies . Some 100 million light-years distant within the…
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas over the Dolomites
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas is now headed back to the outer Solar System . The massive dusty snowball put on quite a show during its trip near the Sun, resulting in many impressive…
Milky Way over Easter Island
Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 900 large stone statues called moai s exist there. The Rapa Nui (Easter Island) moais stand,…
M42: The Great Nebula in Orion
The Great Nebula in Orion , an immense, nearby starbirth region , is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas . Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge…
Jupiter Abyss
What's that black spot on Jupiter? No one is sure. During one pass of NASA's Juno over Jupiter , the robotic spacecraft imaged an usually dark cloud feature informally dubbed the…
Saturn at Night
Saturn is bright in Earth's night skies. Telescopic views of the outer gas giant planet and its beautiful rings often make it a star at star parties . But this stunning view of…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way . It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern…
Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula
By starlight, this eerie visage shines in the dark with a crooked profile evoking its popular name, the Witch Head Nebula . In fact, this entrancing telescopic portrait gives the…
NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula
What created this huge space bubble? Blown by the wind from a star, this tantalizing , head-like apparition is cataloged as NGC 7635, but known simply as the Bubble Nebula . The…
NGC 602: Stars Versus Pillars from Webb
The stars are destroying the pillars. More specifically, some of the newly formed stars in the image center are emitting light so energetic that is evaporating the gas and dust in…
STEVE: A Glowing River over France
Sometimes a river of hot gas flows over your head. In this case the river created a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement ( STEVE ) that glowed bright red, white, and pink.…
LDN 43: The Cosmic Bat Nebula
What is the most spook-tacular nebula in the galaxy? One contender is LDN 43, which bears an astonishing resemblance to a vast cosmic bat flying amongst the stars on a dark…
Phantoms in Cassiopeia
These brightly outlined flowing shapes look ghostly on a cosmic scale. A telescopic view toward the constellation Cassiopeia , the colorful skyscape features the swept-back,…
Viewing discoveries from 18 November 2024 through 26 October 2024.