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.
Comet 21P Between Rosette and Cone Nebulas
Small bits of this greenish-gray comet are expected to streak across Earth's atmosphere tonight. Specifically, debris from the eroding nucleus of Comet 21P / Giacobini-Zinner ,…
The Scale of the Universe - Interactive
What does the universe look like on small scales? On large scales? Humanity is discovering that the universe is a very different place on every proportion that has been explored.…
Aurora: The Frog's View
What does an aurora look like to a frog? “Awesome!” is the likely answer , suggested by this imaginative snapshot taken on October 3rd from Kiruna, Sweden. Frequented by…
The Last Days of Venus as the Evening Star
That's not a young crescent Moon poised above the hills along the western horizon at sunset. It's Venus in a crescent phase . About 54 million kilometers away and less than 20…
Opportunity After the Storm
On Mars dust storms can't actually blow spacecraft over, but they can blot out the Sun. Over three months ago a planet-wide dust storm caused a severe lack of sunlight for the…
NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this glittering jewel -box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now some stars are more…
Supernumerary Rainbows over New Jersey
Yes, but can your rainbow do this? After the remnants of Hurricane Florence passed over the Jersey Shore, New Jersey , USA last month, the Sun came out in one direction but…
The First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
A new chapter in space flight began in 1950 with the launch of the first rocket from Cape Canaveral , Florida : the Bumper V-2. Featured here , the Bumper V-2 was an ambitious…
The Lonely Neutron Star in Supernova Remnant E0102-72.3
Why is this neutron star off-center? Recently a lone neutron star has been found within the debris left over from an old supernova explosion . The “lonely neutron star” in…
55 Nights with Saturn
For 55 consecutive nights Mediterranean skies were at least partly clear this summer, from the 1st of July to the 24th of August 2018. An exposure from each night was incorporated…
The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty
This colorful skyscape spans about two full moons across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus . Near the edge…
M33: Triangulum Galaxy
The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy . M33…
The Sun's Spectrum with its Missing Colors
It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Here are all the visible colors of the Sun , produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism -like device.…
Highlights of the North Autumn Sky
What can you see in the night sky this season? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for Earth's northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, early…
Rover 1A Hops on Asteroid Ryugu
Two small robots have begun hopping around the surface of asteroid Ryugu. The rovers, each the size of a small frying pan , move around the low gravity of kilometer-sized 162173…
Equinox: Analemma over the Callanish Stones
Does the Sun return to the same spot on the sky every day at the same time? No. A more visual answer to that question is an analemma , a composite image taken from the same spot…
Window Seat over Hudson Bay
On the August 18 night flight from San Francisco to Zurich, a window seat offered this tantalizing view when curtains of light draped a colorful glow across the sky over Hudson…
Irregular Galaxy NGC 55
Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and is a well known satellite of our own…
Stars and Dust in Corona Australis
Cosmic dust clouds and young, energetic stars inhabit this telescopic vista , less than 500 light-years away toward the northern boundary of Corona Australis , the Southern Crown.…
Cocoon Nebula Deep Field
Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. The cosmic Cocoon on the upper right also punctuates a long trail of obscuring interstellar dust clouds to its…
Salt, Pepper, and Ice
There's a "camera" comet now moving across the sky. Just a bit too dim to see with the unaided eye, Comet 21P / Giacobini-Zinner has developed a long tail that makes it a good…
Cosmic Collision Forges Galactic Ring
How could a galaxy become shaped like a ring? The rim of the blue galaxy pictured on the right is an immense ring-like structure 150,000 light years in diameter composed of newly…
A Solar Filament Erupts
What's happened to our Sun? Nothing very unusual -- it just threw a filament . Toward the middle of 2012, a long standing solar filament suddenly erupted into space producing an…
Mont Blanc, Meteor, and Milky Way
Snowy Mont Blanc is near the center of this atmospheric night skyscape. But high, thin clouds fogged the skies at the photographer's location, looking south toward Europe's…
Viewing discoveries from 8 October 2018 through 15 September 2018.