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.
Veil Nebula: Wisps of an Ancient Supernova
Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,000 years ago that star exploded in a supernova , leaving the Veil Nebula . At the time, the expanding…
UGC 1810: Wildly Interacting Galaxy from Hubble
What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Although details remain uncertain, it surely has to do with an ongoing battle with its smaller galactic neighbor. The featured galaxy is…
Afterimage Sunset
On May 7, the Sun setting behind a church bell tower was captured in this filtered and manipulated digital skyscape from Ragusa, Sicily, planet Earth. In this version of the image…
Mars in the Loop
This composite of images spaced a weather-permitting 5 to 9 days apart, from 2024 September 19 (top right) through 2025 May 18 (bottom left), faithfully traces ruddy-colored Mars…
Irregular Dwarf Galaxy Sextans A
Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the attention, flaunting young, bright, blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along graceful, symmetric spiral arms. But…
Herbig-Haro 24
This might look like a double-bladed lightsaber, but these two cosmic jets actually beam outward from a newborn star in a galaxy near you . Constructed from Hubble Space Telescope…
Zeta and Rho Ophiuchi with Milky Way
Behold one of the most photogenic regions of the night sky, captured impressively. Featured , the band of our Milky Way Galaxy runs diagonally along the bottom-left corner, while…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 2566 from Webb
What's happening in the center of spiral galaxy NGC 2566? First, the eight rays that appear to be coming out of the center in the featured infrared image are not real — they are…
Beneath Jupiter
Jupiter is stranger than we knew. NASA's Juno spacecraft has now completed over 70 swoops past Jupiter as it moves around its highly elliptical orbit. Pictured from 2017, Jupiter…
Deimos Before Sunrise
Deimos takes 30 hours and 18 minutes to complete one orbit around the Red Planet. That's a little more than one Martian day or sol which is about 24 hours and 40 minutes long, so…
NGC 6366 vs 47 Ophiuchi
Most globular star clusters roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, but globular cluster NGC 6366 lies close to the galactic plane . About 12,000 light-years away toward the…
Curly Spiral Galaxy M63
A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is nearby, about 30 million light-years distant toward the loyal constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055,…
International Space Station Crosses the Sun
Typically, the International Space Station is visible only at night. Slowly drifting across the night sky as it orbits the Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) can be seen…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 2 June 2025 through 10 May 2025.