Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Active Sunspot Region 4366 Crosses the Sun
An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the Sun. The region, labelled AR 4366 , is much larger than the Earth and has produced several powerful solar flare s over the…
Crescent Enceladus
Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured…
Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After…
NGC 1275 in the Perseus Cluster
Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies . Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: Wide Field
Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have three? To begin, a ring that's near NGC 1512 's center -- and so hard to see here -- is the nuclear ring which…
Red Spider Planetary Nebula from Webb
Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and…
Orion: The Running Man Nebula
What part of Orion is this? Just north of the famous Orion Nebula is a picturesque star forming region in Orion's Sword that contains a lot of intricate dust -- some of which…
Galle: Happy Face Crater on Mars
Mars has put on a happy face. The Martian crater Galle is famous because it has internal markings that make it look like a face that is both smiling and winking. These markings…
Artemis I: Flight Day 13
On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis 1 mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth. At over 430,000 kilometers from Earth, its distant…
NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula , dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant…
NGC 2442: Galaxy in Volans
Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans . Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms…
M78: Reflecting Blue in a Sea of Red
In the vast Orion Molecular Cloud complex, several bright blue nebulas are particularly apparent. Pictured here in the center are two of the most prominent reflection nebulas -…
Orion's Treasures over Snowy Mountains
Rising over a frozen valley in the Tatra Mountains , the familiar stars and nebulas of Orion dominate this wide-field nightscape. The featured deep photo was taken in southern…
NGC 55: A Galaxy of Nebulas
Can you see nebulas in other galaxies? Yes, some nebulas shine brightly enough -- if you know how to look. Clouds of hydrogen and oxygen emit light at very specific colors, and by…
Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
This moon is doomed. Mars , the red planet named for the Roman god of war , has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos , whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic .…
Earthset from Orion
Eight billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space taken on 2022 November 21. On the sixth day of the Artemis I mission , their home world is setting behind…
Planetary Nebula Abell 7
Very faint planetary nebula Abell 7 is about 1,800 light-years distant. It lies just south of Orion in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation Lepus, The Hare . Posing with…
LDN 1622: Dark Nebula in Orion
The silhouette of an intriguing dark nebula inhabits this cosmic scene . Lynds' Dark Nebula ( LDN ) 1622 appears against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only visible in…
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…
Io in True Color
The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. The featured picture , an attempt to show how Io would appear in the “true colors” perceptible to the average human eye,…
CTB 1: The Medulla Nebula
What powers this unusual nebula? CTB 1 is the expanding gas shell that was left when a massive star toward the constellation of Cassiopeia exploded about 10,000 years ago. The…
Jupiter from the Webb Space Telescope
This infrared view of Jupiter by Webb is illuminating. High-resolution infrared images of Jupiter from the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) reveal, for example, differences…
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 7023: The Iris Nebula
These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus . Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke…
Viewing discoveries from 8 February 2026 through 16 January 2026.