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.
Gigantic Jet Over the Tatacoa Desert
Is there an angry Sith using force lightning in the Tatacoa Desert ? This is not science fiction, but a gigantic jet with multiple red streamers ! Ordinary lightning occurs when…
Double Lobed Asteroid Torifune
Why is this asteroid a double? Earlier this month the Japan ese robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 shot past asteroid 98943 Torifune and captured pictures . Although previous…
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Auroras from Space
What do auroras look like from above? Behold! From the ground, auroras dance high above clouds , frequently causing spectacular displays . From space, they look a bit different.…
Galaxy NGC 474: Shells and Star Streams
What's happening to galaxy NGC 474 ? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in less deep…
Messier 24: Sagittarius Star Cloud
Unlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust…
Western Moon, Eastern Sea
The Mare Orientale , Latin for Eastern Sea, is one of the most striking large scale lunar features. The youngest of the large lunar impact basins it's very difficult to see from…
The Red Glow of the Cosmic Bat Nebula
This Cosmic Bat wishes you a happy Summerween ! This mid-year celebration of Halloween transcends hemispheres, even though summer in the Northern hemisphere is winter in the…
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Swift Boost Mission
Sometimes we can all use a little help from a friend . NASA 's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory needs a boost to stay in orbit after almost 22 years of service. This video shows an…
NGC 6188: Dragons of Ara
Where can you find dragons fighting in the night sky? In the southern constellation of the Altar: Ara . The dragons are, of course, actually made of suggestively shaped gas and…
Dueling Bands over the Atacama Desert
What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy . Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral galaxy…
Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon
What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal , while others are as bright as snow . To help better understand this unusually…
Pathfinder on Mars
On July 4th , 1997, using its own array of fireworks , a parachute, and a cocoon of airbags, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft bounced like a giant beach ball at least 15 times…
Three Galaxies in Pavo
Some 190 million light-years away, far beyond the bright stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, these three galaxies are drawn together by gravity in a mesmerizing cosmic dance .…
Sibling Supernova Remnants
What happens when one of the stars in a binary goes supernova? This image combines visible (yellow), ultraviolet (purple) and infrared light (cyan, red and orange) to show two…
The Cotton Candy Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi
Although they look like cotton candy, you cannot eat these clouds! Taken in Cádiz, Spain , today's image features the Rho Ophiuchi complex , a rich tapestry of young and old…
Unusually Smooth Sections of Asteroid Itokawa
Why are parts of this asteroid's surface so smooth? The answer seems likely to do with the dynamics of an asteroid that is a loose pile of rubble rather than a solid rock. The…
M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind
Why is the Cigar Galaxy billowing red smoke? M82 , as this starburst galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81 . This doesn't fully…
AR 4478: Giant Sunspot Group
Right now, one of the largest sunspot groups in recent history is crossing the Sun. Active Region 4478 is not only big -- it's violent, showing tangled magnetic fields capable of…
Mars Marathon by Perseverance
In this recent HiRISE view from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the little green dot indicated on the surface of the big Red Planet is the Perseverance Mars rover. Recorded on…
Milky Way Urban Style
In a cosmic vista you can never see, the Milky Way arcs through the night above Seoul, South Korea. Remarkably, this urban night skyscape reveals our galaxy's faintly luminous…
Anticrepuscular Rays over Sicily
The Sun has just set... in the opposite side of the sky. Pictured here are anticrepuscular rays apparently converging in the east in this image of the limestone plateau in the…
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SDO Observes a Coronal Mass Ejection
Why does the Sun throw stuff at us? The Sun’s surface is a churning soup of energetic electrons and ions called plasma . The motion of those charged particles creates magnetic…
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Flying Past Neptune's Moon Triton
What would it look like to fly past Triton , the largest moon of planet Neptune ? Only one spacecraft has ever done this -- and the images of this dramatic encounter have been…
M27: The Dumbbell Nebula
Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The first hint of our Sun 's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764 . At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list…
Viewing discoveries from 15 July 2026 through 22 June 2026.