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.
Magellanic Mountain
Flanked by satellite galaxies of the Milky Way a volcanic peak rises from this rugged horizon. The southern night skyscape looks toward the south over Laguna Lejia and the…
Gaia's Milky Way
This grand allsky view of our Milky Way and nearby galaxies is not a photograph . It's a map based on individual measurements for nearly 1.7 billion stars. The astronomically rich…
The Snows of Churyumov-Gerasimenko
You couldn't really be caught in this blizzard while standing by a cliff on Churyumov-Gerasimenko , also known as comet 67P. Orbiting the comet in June of 2016 the Rosetta…
Hubble's Jupiter and the Shrinking Great Red Spot
What will become of Jupiter's Great Red Spot? Gas giant Jupiter is the solar system's largest world with about 320 times the mass of planet Earth . Jupiter is home to one of the…
The Blue Horsehead Nebula in Infrared
The Blue Horsehead Nebula looks quite different in infrared light. In visible light , the reflecting dust of the nebula appears blue and shaped like a horse's head . In infrared…
Meteor Over Crater Lake
Did you see it? One of the more common questions during a meteor shower occurs because the time it takes for a meteor to flash is typically less than the time it takes for a head…
TESS Launch Close Up
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) began its search for planets orbiting other stars by leaving planet Earth on April 18. The exoplanet hunter rode to orbit on…
Moon in the Hyades
Have you seen the Moon lately ? On April 18, its waxing sunlit crescent moved through planet Earth's night across a background of stars in the Hyades . Anchored by bright star…
NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula
Blown by the wind from a massive star, this interstellar apparition has a surprisingly familiar shape . Cataloged as NGC 7635, it is also known simply as The Bubble Nebula .…
Milky Way over Deadvlei in Namibia
What planet is this? It is the only planet currently known to have trees. The trees in Deadvlei , though, have been dead for over 500 years. Located in Namib-Naukluft Park in…
M57: The Ring Nebula
Except for the rings of Saturn , the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band . Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though.…
Space Shuttle Rising
What's that rising from the clouds? The space shuttle. Sometimes, if you look out the window of an airplane at just the right time and place, you see something unusual -- in this…
Martian Chiaroscuro
Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24, 2014 by the HiRISE camera onboard…
Facing NGC 3344
From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy , we see NGC 3344 face-on. Nearly 40,000 light-years across, the big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years…
M22 and the Wanderers
Wandering through the constellation Sagittarius, bright planets Mars and Saturn appeared together in early morning skies over the last weeks . They are captured in this 3 degree…
Fortuitous Flash Candidate for the Farthest Star Yet Seen
Was this flash the farthest star yet seen? An unexpected flash of light noticed fortuitously on Hubble Space Telescope images may prove to be not only an unusual gravitational…
Dragon Aurora over Norway
What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal hole opened last month, a few days before this image was taken, throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons , protons , and ions…
NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula
Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light would have suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this…
Painting with Jupiter
Brush strokes of Jupiter's signature atmospheric bands and vortices form this planetary post-impressionist work of art. The creative image uses actual data from the Juno…
NGC 3324 in Carina
This bright cosmic cloud was sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from the hot young stars of open cluster NGC 3324. With dust clouds in silhouette against its glowing atomic…
NGC 289: Swirl in the Southern Sky
About 70 million light-years distant, gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 289 is larger than our own Milky Way . Seen nearly face-on, its bright core and colorful central disk give way to…
Intrepid Crater on Mars from Opportunity
The robotic rover Opportunity sometimes passes small craters on Mars. Pictured here in 2010 is Intrepid Crater, a 20-meter across impact basin slightly larger than Nereus Crater…
The Milky Way over the Seven Strong Men Rock Formations
You may have heard of the Seven Sisters in the sky, but have you heard about the Seven Strong Men on the ground? Located just west of the Ural Mountains , the unusual Manpupuner…
Moons, Rings, Shadows, Clouds: Saturn (Cassini)
While cruising around Saturn, be on the lookout for picturesque juxtapositions of moons, rings, and shadows. One quite picturesque arrangement occurred in 2005 and was captured by…
Viewing discoveries from 28 April 2018 through 2 April 2018.