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.
Manhattanhenge: A New York City Sunset
This coming Saturday, if it is clear, well placed New Yorkers can go outside at sunset and watch their city act like a modern version of Stonehenge . Manhattan 's streets will…
M106 Across the Spectrum
The spiral arms of bright, active galaxy M106 sprawl through this remarkable multiwavelength portrait , composed of image data from radio to X-rays, across the electromagnetic…
OCO-2 Night Launch
In this alluring time exposure , star trails arc across the night sky above foggy Monterey Bay and the lights of Santa Cruz, California in the United States of America . Since the…
Along the Cygnus Wall
The prominent ridge of emission featured in this vivid skyscape is known as the Cygnus Wall. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape popularly called The North…
NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy
Spiral galaxy NGC 4651 is a mere 62 million light-years distant, toward the well-groomed northern constellation Coma Berenices . About the size of our Milky Way, this island…
Wolf-Rayet Star 124: Stellar Wind Machine
Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot that they slowly disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each…
Peculiar Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus A
What's happened to the center of this galaxy? Unusual and dramatic dust lanes run across the center of elliptical galaxy Centaurus A . These dust lanes are so thick they almost…
Galaxy Cove Vista Revisited
To see a vista like this takes patience, hiking, and a camera. Patience was needed in searching out just the right place and waiting for just the right time. A short hike was…
Orion Arising
Orion's belt runs just along the horizon, seen through Earth's atmosphere and rising in this starry snapshot from low Earth orbit on board the International Space Station . The…
Martian Anniversary Selfie
June 24th marked the first full Martian year of the Curiosity Rover's exploration of the surface of the Red Planet. That's 687 Earth days or 669 sols since its landing on August…
Conjunction by the Sea
Early morning risers were treated to a beautiful conjunction of Venus and waning Crescent Moon on June 24, captured in this seaside photo near Belmar, New Jersey, USA, planet…
The Hercules Cluster of Galaxies
These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster , an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away . Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and…
The Iris Nebula in a Field of Dust
What flowers in this field of dark star dust? The Iris Nebula . The striking blue color of the Iris Nebula is created by light from the bright star SAO 19158 reflecting off of a…
Four Lasers over Mauna Kea
Are lasers from giant telescopes being used to attack the Galactic center? No. Lasers shot from telescopes are now commonly used to help increase the accuracy of astronomical…
Persistent Saturnian Auroras
Are Saturn's auroras like Earth's? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn's South Pole simultaneously as Cassini…
Lisbon Honey Moon
The Sun set on Friday the 13th as a full Honey Moon rose, captured in this well-planned time-lapse sequence. Lisbon, Portugal's Christ the King monument is in the foreground,…
Rio at Night
In this night skyscape setting stars trail above the western horizon over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a venue for the 2014 World Cup . Gentle arcs from the bright, colorful stars of…
Over the Top
The central bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy rises above a sea of clouds in this ethereal scene . An echo of the Milky Way's dark dust lanes, the volcanic peak in foreground…
NGC 6334: The Cat's Paw Nebula
Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble . Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw…
CMB Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun . The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy . The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies . The…
New York to London Milky Way
Bright stars of Sagittarius and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy lie just off the wing of a Boeing 747 in this astronomical travel photo . The stratospheric scene was captured…
A Strawberry Moon
June's Full Moon (full phase on June 13, 0411 UT) is traditionally known as the Strawberry Moon or Rose Moon. Of course those names might also describe the appearance of this Full…
The Tarantula Zone
The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). That cosmic arachnid…
Three Galaxies over New Zealand
No, radio dishes cannot broadcast galaxies. Although they can detect them , the above image features a photogenic superposition during a dark night in New Zealand about two weeks…
Viewing discoveries from 6 July 2014 through 11 June 2014.