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.
A Plane Lunar Eclipse
Did you need to be on the right side of this airplane to see this eclipse? No. Lunar eclipses are routinely seen from the half of the Earth facing the Moon when the eclipse…
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Launch of the Roman Space Telescope
A new telescope has been launched into space to study the universe. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) has the same size main mirror as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)…
M74: A Grand Design Spiral
If not the most grand, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the…
Eclipse Pair
Eclipses tend to come in pairs. Twice a year, during an eclipse season that lasts about 34 days, Sun, Moon, and Earth can nearly align. Then the new and full phases of the Moon,…
The Sky Turns Above Paranal
At the latitude of ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile, about 25 degrees south, Earth's rotation moves the planet's surface eastward at over 1,500 kilometers per hour. And while…
Colorful Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall
What a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second…
JWST Images The Lion's Head Nebula
Are we looking at the future of our Sun? The James Webb Space Telescope captured today’s composite image of the Lion’s Head Nebula (NGC 2392) with its NIRCam and MIRI instruments.…
Earth's Shadow Visualized with Lunar Eclipses
What’s creating this giant hole in space? This is not a black hole — it’s a shadow. It’s Earth’s shadow. Since at least the time of Aristotle, people have noted that Earth's dark…
Comet 220P in Outburst
Comet 220P is unexpectedly bright. Normally, periodic Comet 220P/McNaught is so dim that to see it requires a telescope. Two surprising outbursts this year, however, have made it…
Cassini Approaches Saturn
What would it look like to approach the grand planet Saturn? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along…
Mostly Perseids
Recorded the night of August 12-13, images from four dedicated meteor-monitoring cameras at an astronomical observatory in Czechia were aligned and combined to create this…
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Time Lapse of the Star S301 Orbiting the Black Hole in the Center of the Galaxy
What does it feel like to zoom around a spinning supermassive black hole? The featured video is an animation showing a time-lapse of 4 years of observations of the star S301…
The Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off…
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The Case of the Mysterious Maybe Meteor
Whatdunit? What disappeared while crossing a partially eclipsed Sun? Let’s present the evidence. The 24 frames-per-second video was taken in Spain (40°34'30.3"N 1°12'28.8"W) at…
Perseids from Perseus
This was a good year for the Perseids meteor shower. A key reason was the Moon was absent from lighting up Earth's night sky so that more meteors were visible than usual. Where…
A Golden Corona Eclipse
This total solar eclipse appeared not only poetically beautiful but scientifically interesting. Usually the solar corona appears white, and to some observers the corona of last…
Milky Way over Yellowstone
The Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake. The colorful pool of water, about 10 meters across, is known as Silex Spring and is located in Yellowstone National Park in…
Bright Perseids from Sweden
Known for its bright and fast meteors, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower comes to planet Earth's skies from a radiant in the heroic constellation Perseus. The popular northern…
Total Solar Eclipse from Greenland
On August 12, the Moon's shadow reached out to touch our fair planet. Beginning in the Arctic Ocean, it swept along a narrow track that led the dark lunar umbra across parts of…
Total Solar Eclipse Over Spain
On August 12th, 2026, the Moon totally eclipsed the Sun and cast its shadow across Siberia, Greenland, Iceland, Spain, and Portugal. Today’s image features two total solar…
Perseids over a Little Planet
It looks like a view from the Little Prince's planet. The featured image is a throwback to the 2024 Perseid meteor shower, surrounded in this projection by the Bieszczady…
Six Moons of Saturn
How many moons does Saturn have? While the total will likely continue to grow, as of June 2026 the ringed gas giant had 293 confirmed moons. That's easily more than any other…
Three Galaxy Pairs
Each of these pairs of galaxies is different. The two galaxies at the top are likely not interacting, at least presently. However, the top galaxy with the blue stripe, NGC 4650A,…
Contemplating the Sun
Have you contemplated your home star recently? Featured here, a Sun partially eclipsed on the top left by the Moon is also seen eclipsed by earthlings contemplating the eclipse…
Viewing discoveries from 1 September 2026 through 9 August 2026.