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.
Rima Hyginus
Rima Hyginus is a spectacular fissure , some 220 kilometers long, found near the center of the lunar near side . Easy to spot in telescopic views of the Moon, it stretches top…
Hubble's Andromeda Galaxy Mosaic
The largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope image data is a panoramic view of our neighboring spiral Andromeda Galaxy. With 600 overlapping frames assembled…
Messier 87
Enormous elliptical galaxy Messier 87 is about 50 million light-years away. Also known as NGC 4486, the giant galaxy holds trillions of stars compared to the mere billions of…
HH 30: A Star System with Planets Now Forming
How do stars and planets form? New clues have been found in the protoplanetary system Herbig-Haro 30 by the James Webb Space Telescope in concert with Hubble and the Earth-bound…
Thor's Helmet versus the Seagull
Seen as a seagull and a duck, these nebulae are not the only cosmic clouds to evoke images of flight. But both are winging their way across this broad celestial landscape,…
SpaceX Rocket Launch Plume over California
What's happened to the sky? Last Monday, the photogenic launch plume from a SpaceX rocket launch created quite a spectacle over parts of southern California and Arizona . Looking…
Perijove 11: Passing Jupiter
Here comes Jupiter. NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its highly elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. The featured video is from perijove 11 in…
Parhelia at Abisko
Three suns seem to hug the horizon in this otherworldly winterscape. But the evocative scene was captured during a February 3rd snowmobile exploration of the mountainous region…
A Cosmic Rose: NGC 2237 in Monoceros
The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers , but it is probably the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular…
Reflections on VdB 31
Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue VdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae . It shares this well-composed…
Asteroid Bennu Holds the Building Blocks of Life
What can a space rock tell us about life on Earth? NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a careful approach to the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu in October of 2020 to collect…
The Spider and the Fly
Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer ( Auriga ). The spider -shaped gas cloud in the image center…
Auroral Hummingbird over Norway
Is this the largest hummingbird ever? Although it may look like a popular fluttering nectarivore , what is pictured is actually a beautifully detailed and colorful aurora ,…
Milky Way over the Australian Pinnacles
What strange world is this? E a r t h . In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles , unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia . Made of…
A Conjunction of Crescents
A waxing crescent Moon and a waning crescent Venus are found at opposite corners of this twilight telephoto field of view . The close conjunction of the two brightest celestial…
LEDA 1313424: The Bullseye Galaxy
The giant galaxy cataloged as LEDA 1313424 is about two and a half times the size of our own Milky Way. Its remarkable appearance in this recently released Hubble Space Telescope…
IC 2574: Coddington's Nebula
Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form…
Comet G3 ATLAS Setting over a Chilean Hill
Where is Comet ATLAS going? In the featured time-lapse video, the comet is not itself moving very much, but the Earth's rotation makes it appear to be setting over a hill. The…
Anticrepuscular Rays: A Rainbow Fan over Spain
Yes, but can your rainbow do this? Late in the day, the Sun set as usual toward the west. However, on this day, the more interesting display was 180 degrees around -- toward the…
Wolf-Rayet Star 124: Stellar Wind Machine
Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot that they are slowly disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each…
Comet G3 ATLAS Disintegrates
What's happening to Comet G3 ATLAS? After passing near the Sun in mid-January, the head of the comet has become dimmer and dimmer. By late January, Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) had…
Nacreous Clouds over Sweden
Vivid and lustrous, wafting iridescent waves of color wash across this skyscape from northern Sweden. Known as nacreous clouds or mother-of-pearl clouds, they are rare. But their…
The Variable Nebula NGC 2261
The interstellar cloud of dust and gas captured in this sharp telescopic snapshot is seen to change its appearance noticeably over periods as short as a few weeks. Discovered over…
Hydrogen Clouds of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy Messier 33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the Local Group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the…
Viewing discoveries from 22 February 2025 through 30 January 2025.