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.
Blue Danube Analemma
The Sun's annual waltz through planet Earth's sky forms a graceful curve known as an analemma. The analemma's figure 8 shape is tipped vertically at far right in this…
Herschel's Eagle Nebula
A now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This…
M13: A Great Globular Cluster of Stars
M13 is one of the most prominent and best known globular clusters . Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hercules , M13 is frequently one of the first objects found by…
Puzzling a Sky over Argentina
Can you find the comet? True, a careful eye can find thousands of stars , tens of constellations, four planets, three galaxies , and the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy --…
Deep Magellanic Clouds Image Indicates Collisions
Did the two most famous satellite galaxies of our Milky Way Galaxy once collide? No one knows for sure, but a detailed inspection of deep images like that featured here give an…
M2-9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and…
Summer Planets and Milky Way
Lights sprawl toward the horizon in this night skyscape from Uludag National Park, Bursa Province, Turkey, planet Earth . The stars and nebulae of the Milky Way are still visible…
Galaxy Cluster Abell S1063 and Beyond
Some 4 billion light-years away, galaxies of massive Abell S1063 cluster near the center of this sharp Hubble Space Telescope snapshot . But the fainter bluish arcs are magnified…
Falcon 9: Launch and Landing
Shortly after midnight on July 18 a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, planet Earth. About 9 minutes later,…
Dark Dunes on Mars (Horizontally Compressed)
How does wind affect sand on Mars? To help find out if it differs significantly from Earth, the robotic Curiosity rover on Mars was directed to investigate the dark Namib Dune in…
Color the Universe
Wouldn't it be fun to color in the universe? If you think so, please accept this famous astronomical illustration as a preliminary substitute. You, your friends , your parents or…
The Orion Nebula in Infrared from HAWK-I
The deepest infrared image of the Orion Nebula has uncovered a bonanza of previously unknown low-mass stars and -- quite possibly -- free floating planets. The picturesque nebula…
Mercury on the Horizon
Have you ever seen the planet Mercury? Because Mercury orbits so close to the Sun, it never wanders far from the Sun in Earth's sky . If trailing the Sun, Mercury will be visible…
The North Celestial Tower
If you climbed to the top of this 13th century stone tower, it looks like you could reach out and touch the North Celestial Pole , the point at the center of all the star trail…
NGC 2736: The Pencil Nebula
Moving from top to bottom in the frame near the center of this sharply detailed color composite , thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of…
NGC 1309: Spiral Galaxy and Friends
A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River ( Eridanus ). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years,…
M7: Open Star Cluster in Scorpius
M7 is one of the most prominent open clusters of stars on the sky. The cluster, dominated by bright blue stars , can be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky in the tail of the…
Chasing Juno
Wait for me! In 2011, NASA's robotic mission Juno launched for Jupiter from Cape Canaveral , Florida , USA . Last week, Juno reached Jupiter and fired internal rockets to become…
Aurorae on Jupiter
Jupiter has aurorae . Like Earth , the magnetic field of the gas giant funnels charged particles released from the Sun onto the poles. As these particles strike the atmosphere,…
Moon Meets Jupiter
What's that next to the Moon? Jupiter -- and its four largest moons. Skygazers around planet Earth enjoyed the close encounter of planets and Moon in 2012 July 15's predawn skies…
Noctilucent Clouds Tour France
Bright noctilucent or night shining clouds are not familiar sights from northern France. But these electric-blue waves coursed through skies over the small town of Wancourt in…
The Swirling Core of the Crab Nebula
At the core of the Crab Nebula lies a city-sized, magnetized neutron star spinning 30 times a second. Known as the Crab Pulsar, it's actually the rightmost of two bright stars,…
The Altiplano Night
The Milky Way is massively bright on this cold, clear, altiplano night. At 4,500 meters its reflection in a river, a volcanic peak on the distant horizon, is captured in this…
Arp 286: Trio in Virgo
A remarkable telescopic composition in yellow and blue, this scene features a trio of interacting galaxies almost 90 million light-years away, toward the constellation Virgo . On…
Viewing discoveries from 29 July 2016 through 6 July 2016.