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.
Cerealia Facula
Cerealia Facula, also known as the brightest spot on Ceres , is shown in this stunning mosaic close-up view. The high-resolution image data was recorded by the Dawn spacecraft, in…
Dark Slope Streaks Split on Mars
What is creating these dark streaks on Mars? No one is sure. Candidates include dust avalanches, evaporating dry ice sleds , and liquid water flows. What is clear is that the…
Moon and Venus over Cannon Beach
What's that spot next to the Moon? Venus . Two days ago, the crescent Moon slowly drifted past Venus, appearing within just one degree at its closest. This conjunction , though,…
Neutrino Associated with Distant Blazar Jet
With equipment frozen deep into ice beneath Earth's South Pole, humanity appears to have discovered a neutrino from far across the universe. If confirmed, this would mark the…
Rings Around the Ring Nebula
There is much more to the familiar Ring Nebula (M57) , however, than can be seen through a small telescope. The easily visible central ring is about one light-year across, but…
A Nibble on the Sun
The smallest of the three partial solar eclipses during 2018 was just yesterday, Friday, July 13. It was mostly visible over the open ocean between Australia and Antarctica.…
Star Trails and the Bracewell Radio Sundial
Sundials use the location of a shadow to measure the Earth's rotation and indicate the time of day. So it's fitting that this sundial, at the Very Large Array Radio Telescope…
Centaurus A
Only 11 million light-years away, Centaurus A is the closest active galaxy to planet Earth. Spanning over 60,000 light-years, the peculiar elliptical galaxy also known as NGC 5128…
Symbiotic R Aquarii
You can see it change in brightness with just binoculars over the course of a year. Variable star R Aquarii is actually an interacting binary star system, two stars that seem to…
Noctilucent Clouds over Paris Fireworks
It's northern noctilucent cloud season -- perhaps a time to celebrate! Composed of small ice crystals forming only during specific conditions in the upper atmosphere, noctilucent…
Road to Mars
What's that light at the end of the road? Mars . This is a good month to point out Mars to your friends and family because our neighboring planet will not only be its brightest in…
The Extraordinary Spiral in LL Pegasi
What created the strange spiral structure on the upper left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase,…
A Northern Summer's Night
Near a summer's midnight a mist haunts the river bank in this dreamlike skyscape taken on July 3rd from northern Denmark. Reddened light from the Sun a little below the horizon…
Charon: Moon of Pluto
A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier high-resolution view. The portrait of Charon , Pluto's largest moon, was captured by…
Shadow Rise on the Inside Passage
At sunset look east not west. As Earth's dark shadow rises from the eastern horizon, faint and subtle colors will appear opposite the setting Sun. This beautiful evening sea and…
Dawn's Early Light, Rocket's Red Glare
If you saw the dawn's early light from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station last Friday, June 29, then you could have seen this rocket's red glare. The single 277-second long…
An Airplane in Front of the Moon
If you look closely at the Moon, you will see a large airplane in front of it. Well, not always. OK, hardly ever. Actually, to capture an image like this takes precise timing , an…
From the Galactic Plane through Antares
Behold one of the most photogenic regions of the night sky, captured impressively. Featured, the band of our Milky Way Galaxy runs diagonally along the far left, while the…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
Do underground oceans vent through the tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into…
The East 96th Street Moon
A very full Moon rose over Manhattan's Upper Eastside on June 28, known to some as the Strawberry Moon . Near the horizon, the warm yellow lunar disk was a bit ruffled and dimmed…
Messier 24: Sagittarius Star Cloud
Unlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust…
Sigma Octantis and Friends
South pole star Sigma Octantis (of the constellation Octans) is on the left of this starry expanse spanning over 40 degrees across far southern skies. You'll have to look hard to…
Highlights of the Summer Sky
What can you see in the night sky this summer? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for Earth's northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, early…
Dark Nebulas across Taurus
Sometimes even the dark dust of interstellar space has a serene beauty. One such place occurs toward the constellation of Taurus. The filaments featured here can be found on the…
Viewing discoveries from 19 July 2018 through 26 June 2018.