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.
Mars Approach
Since the distance from Earth to Mars changes drastically as the planets orbit the Sun, Mars' appearance changes dramaticaly. Mars is bright now, and it's getting closer and…
NGC 6744 Close Up
Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way . It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation…
The Case of the Backwards Orbiting Asteroid
Why does asteroid 2015 BZ509 orbit the Sun the backwards? As shown in the featured animation, Jupiter's trojan asteroids) orbit the Sun in two major groups -- one just ahead of…
Aurora and Manicouagan Crater from the Space Station
How many of these can you find in today's featured photograph: an aurora, airglow, one of the oldest impact craters on the Earth, snow and ice, stars, city lights, and part of the…
Seven Dusty Sisters
Is this really the famous Pleaides star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars , the Pleaides is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars.…
Coronal Rain on the Sun
Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a…
Titan: Moon over Saturn
Like Earth's moon, Saturn's largest moon Titan is locked in synchronous rotation. This mosaic of images recorded by the Cassini spacecraft in May of 2012 shows its anti-Saturn…
Galaxies Away
This stunning group of galaxies is far, far away, about 450 million light-years from planet Earth and cataloged as galaxy cluster Abell S0740. Dominated by the cluster's large…
The Gum Nebula Expanse
Named for a cosmic cloud hunter, Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960), The Gum Nebula is so large and close it is actually hard to see. In fact , we are only about…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 4038 in Collision
This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so will be quite tumultuous. Visible toward the…
Craters and Shadows at the Lunar Terminator
Why does the right part of this image of the Moon stand out? Shadows. The terminator line -- the line between light and dark -- occurs in the featured image so that just over half…
Jupiter Cloud Animation from Juno
How do Jupiter's clouds move? To help find out, images taken with NASA's Juno spacecraft during its last pass near Jupiter have been analyzed and digitally extrapolated into a…
In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula
In the heart of monstrous Tarantula Nebula lies huge bubbles of energetic gas, long filaments of dark dust, and unusually massive stars. In the center of this heart, is a knot of…
Reflections of Venus and Moon
Posing near the western horizon, a brilliant evening star and slender young crescent shared reflections in a calm sea last Thursday after sunset. Recorded in this snapshot from a…
Attack of the Laser Guide Stars
Dodging powerful laser beams , a drone captured this stunning aerial view. The confrontation took place above the 8.2 meter diameter Very Large Telescopes of the Paranal…
Milky Way vs Airglow Australis
Captured last week after sunset on a Chilean autumn night, an exceptional airglow floods this allsky view from Las Campanas Observatory. The airglow was so intense it diminished…
Rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud
This image is not blurry. It shows in clear detail that the largest satellite galaxy to our Milky Way, the Large Cloud of Magellan (LMC), rotates. First determined with Hubble ,…
Kepler's House in Linz
Four hundred years ago today ( May 15, 1618 ) Johannes Kepler discovered the simple mathematical rule governing the orbits of the solar system's planets, now recognized as…
Saturn's Hyperion in Natural Color
What lies at the bottom of Hyperion 's strange craters? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft that once orbited Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon in 2005 and…
Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning
Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting in 2013 January. Magma bubbles so hot they…
A Plurality of Singularities at the Galactic Center
A recent informal poll found that astronomers don't yet have a good collective noun for a group of black holes, but they need one. The red circles in this Chandra Observatory…
NGC 1360: The Robin's Egg Nebula
This pretty cosmic cloud lies some 1,500 light-years away, it shape and color reminiscent of a blue robin's egg. It spans about 3 light-years, nested securely within the…
Galaxies in the River
Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism , absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way's…
The Red Rectangle Nebula from Hubble
How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the nebula's center is an aging binary star system that surely powers the nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The…
Viewing discoveries from 1 June 2018 through 9 May 2018.