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.
Shapley 1: An Annular Planetary Nebula
What’s looking back at you isn’t a cosmic eye, but Shapley 1 , a beautifully symmetric planetary nebula . Shapley 1, also known as the Fine Ring Nebula or PLN 329+2.1 , bejewels…
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Flying over the North Pole of Mars
If you could fly over the North Pole of Mars , what would you see? Images from ESA’s Mars Express mission in 2019 were compiled into the featured video which shows just such a…
The Dusty Surroundings of Orion and the Pleiades
How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here is a test: see if you can find some well-known…
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The Moon During a Total Lunar Eclipse
How does the Moon's appearance change during a total lunar eclipse? The featured time-lapse video was digitally processed to keep the Moon bright and centered during the 5-hour…
Lunar Occultation of Mercury
Fans of the western sky after sunset have lately enjoyed this month's remarkable array of bright planets. Witnessed from some locations, on February 18 planet Mercury even…
Sharpless 249 and the Jellyfish Nebula
Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught in this alluring telescopic field of view . Floating in the interstellar sea, the nebula is anchored right and left by…
Webb and Hubble: IC 5332
What does the universe look like through infrared goggles ? Our eyes can only see visible light , but astronomers want to see more. Today’s APOD shows spiral galaxy IC 5332 as…
The Egg Nebula from the Hubble Telescope
Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula , a dying Sun-like star , can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and…
Planet Parade over Sydney Opera House
Look up this week and see a whole bunch of planets. Just after sunset, looking west (mostly), planets Mercury , Venus , Saturn , and Jupiter will all be visible to the unaided eye…
Pleiades: The Seven Sisters Star Cluster
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the…
Shadow of a Martian Robot
What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human ? Then you might be the Opportunity rover exploring Mars. Opportunity explored the Red Planet from 2004 to 2018, finding…
Twilight with Moon and Planets
Only two days after the February New Moon's annular eclipse of the Sun, a slender lunar crescent poses near the western horizon in this wintry twilight skyscape. Its nightside…
B93: A Dark Interstellar Ghost
“A ghost in the Milky Way…” says Christian Bertincourt, the astrophotographer behind this striking image of Barnard 93 (B93). The 93rd entry in Barnard’s Catalogue of Dark Nebula…
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…
Orion's Cradle
Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion. These stellar nurseries lie at the edge of the giant Orion molecular cloud complex , some 1,500 light-years…
Tails of Comet Wierzchoś
Some comets are regular guests of our solar neighborhood; others come by only once, never to return. We won’t have another chance to see Comet C/2024 E1 (Wierzchoś ), which is…
Unexplained Shocks Around a White Dwarf Star
How is RXJ0528+2838 creating such shock waves? A recently discovered white dwarf star , the farther left of the two largest white spots, RXJ0528+2838 , was found 730 light-years…
To Fly Free in Space
What would it be like to fly free in space? About 100 meters from the cargo bay of a space shuttle , Bruce McCandless II was living the dream -- floating farther out than anyone…
Roses are Red
Roses are red, nebulas are too, and this Valentine's gift is a stunning view! Pictured is a loving look at the Rosette Nebula ( NGC 2237 ): a cosmic bloom of bright young stars…
NGC 147 and NGC 185
Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this deep telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellite galaxies of M31, the great spiral Andromeda…
The Bay of Rainbows
Dark, smooth regions that cover the Moon's familiar face are called by Latin names for oceans and seas. That naming convention is historical , though it may seem a little ironic…
A Year of Sunspots
How many sunspots can you see? The central image shows the many sunspots that occurred in 2025, month by month around the circle, and all together in the grand central image. Each…
In Green Company: Aurora over Norway
Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds -- mostly. On the third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not…
Miranda Revisited
What is Miranda really like? Visually, old image s from NASA's Voyager 2 have been recently combined and remastered to result in the featured image of Uranus 's 500-kilometer-wide…
Viewing discoveries from 4 March 2026 through 9 February 2026.