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.
Milky Way over Maunakea
Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light becomes visible across the sky . Soon after your…
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Charon Flyover from New Horizons
What if you could fly over Pluto 's moon Charon -- what might you see? The New Horizons spacecraft did just this in 2015 July as it zipped past Pluto and Charon with cameras…
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Pluto Flyover from New Horizons
What if you could fly over Pluto -- what might you see? The New Horizons spacecraft did just this in 2015 July as it shot past the distant world at a speed of about 80,000…
Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
This close-up from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in southern Acidalia Planitia . A striking shade of blue in…
Messier 101
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this…
A Plutonian Landscape
This shadowy landscape of majestic mountains and icy plains stretches toward the horizon on a small, distant world. It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers when…
NGC 1360: The Robin's Egg Nebula
This pretty nebula lies some 1,500 light-years away, its shape and color in this telescopic view reminiscent of a robin's egg . The cosmic cloud spans about 3 light-year s,…
Gaia Reconstructs a Top View of our Galaxy
What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the top? Because we are on the inside , humanity can't get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using…
Gaia Reconstructs a Side View of our Galaxy
What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from the side? Because we are on the inside, humanity can't get an actual picture. Recently, however, just such a map has been made using…
The Surface of Venus from Venera 14
If you could stand on Venus -- what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 14, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-brake d down through the thick Venusian…
Yogi and Friends in 3D
This picture from July 1997 shows a ramp from the Pathfinder lander, the Sojourner robot rover, deflated landing airbags, a couch, Barnacle Bill and Yogi Rock appear together in…
IXPE Explores a Black Hole Jet
How do black holes create X-rays? Answering this long-standing question was significantly advanced recently with data taken by NASA's IXPE satellite. X-rays cannot exit a black…
M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab
Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets . In fact, the Crab Nebula is now known to be a supernova remnant, an…
Galaxy Wars: M81 versus M82
In the upper left corner, surrounded by blue arms and dotted with red nebulas, is spiral galaxy M81 . In the lower right corner, marked by a light central line and surrounded by…
The Doubly Warped World of Binary Black Holes
If one black hole looks strange, what about two? Light rays from accretion disks around a pair of orbiting supermassive black holes make their way through the warped space-time…
Planet Lines Across Water
What's causing those lines? Objects in the sky sometimes appear reflected as lines across water — but why? If the water's surface is smooth, then reflected objects would appear…
Spin up of a Supermassive Black Hole
How fast can a black hole spin? If any object made of regular matter spins too fast -- it breaks apart. But a black hole might not be able to break apart -- and its maximum spin…
Titan: Moon over Saturn
Like Earth's moon, Saturn's largest moon Titan is locked in synchronous rotation with its planet. This mosaic of images recorded by the Cassini spacecraft in May of 2012 shows its…
Young Star Cluster NGC 346
The most massive young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud is NGC 346, embedded in our small satellite galaxy's largest star forming region some 210,000 light-years…
MESSENGER's Last Day on Mercury
The first to orbit inner planet Mercury, the MESSENGER spacecraft came to rest on this region of Mercury's surface on April 30, 2015. Constructed from MESSENGER image and laser…
A Happy Sky over Bufa Hill in Mexico
Sometimes, the sky itself seems to smile. A few days ago, visible over much of the world, an unusual superposition of our Moon with the planets Venus and Saturn created just such…
Saturn's Rings Appear to Disappear
Where are Saturn's ears? Galileo is credited, in 1610, as the first person to see Saturn's rings . Testing out Lipperhey 's recently co-invented telescope , Galileo did not know…
Gum 37 and the Southern Tadpoles
This cosmic skyscape features glowing gas and dark dust clouds alongside the young stars of NGC 3572 . A beautiful emission nebula and star cluster, it sails far southern skies…
IC 418: The Spirograph Nebula
What is creating the strange texture of IC 418? Dubbed the Spirograph Nebula for its resemblance to drawings from a cyclical drawing tool , planetary nebula IC 418 shows patterns…
Viewing discoveries from 20 May 2025 through 27 April 2025.