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.
Ultima and Thule
On January 1 New Horizons encountered the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Some 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, Ultima Thule is the most distant world ever explored…
The Orion Nebula in Infrared from WISE
The Great Nebula in Orion is an intriguing place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion . But this image , an illusory-color…
The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy , one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo…
The Witch Head Nebula
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble .... maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. A frighteningly shaped reflection nebula , this…
The Galaxy Tree
First came the trees. In the town of Salamanca , Spain , the photographer noticed how distinctive a grove of oak trees looked after being pruned . Next came the galaxy. The…
New Horizons at Ultima Thule
When we celebrate the start of 2019, on January 1 the New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Ultima Thule . A world of the Kuiper belt 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, the…
NGC 1365: Majestic Island Universe
Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation…
The Great Carina Nebula
A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula , also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. Like the smaller, more…
NGC 6357: The Lobster Nebula
Why is the Lobster Nebula forming some of the most massive stars known? No one is yet sure . Cataloged as NGC 6357, the Lobster Nebula houses the open star cluster Pismis 24 near…
M100: A Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a grand design spiral galaxy. It is a large galaxy of over 100 billion stars with well-defined spiral arms that is…
Earthrise 1: Historic Image Remastered
“Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's the Earth coming up. Wow is that pretty!” Soon after that pronouncement , 50 years ago today, one of the most famous images…
Earthrise: A Video Reconstruction
About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred 50…
A Cold December Night
They say Orion always comes up sideways , and he does seem to on this cold December night. The bright stars of the familiar northern winter constellation lie just above the snowy…
Extraordinary Solar Halos
Welcome to the December Solstice, the first day of winter in planet Earth's northern hemisphere and summer in the south. To celebrate, consider this extraordinary display of…
Red Nebula, Green Comet, Blue Stars
This festively colored skyscape was captured in the early morning hours of December 17, following Comet Wirtanen's closest approach to planet Earth . The comet was just visible to…
A Rainbow Geminid Meteor
Meteors can be colorful. While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can. Pictured is a Geminid captured by camera during last week's meteor shower that…
Methane Bubbles Frozen in Lake Baikal
What are these bubbles frozen into Lake Baikal? Methane . Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Russia , is the world's largest (by volume), oldest, and deepest lake,…
M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
What is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy ? Andromeda. In fact, our Galaxy is thought to look much like Andromeda . Together these two galaxies dominate the…
Comet Wirtanen Passes by the Earth
Today Comet Wirtanen passes by the Earth. The kilometer-sized dirty snowball orbits the Sun every 5.4 years, ranging as far out as Jupiter and as close in as the Earth . Today…
Geminids and Friends
From a radiant in the constellation of the Twins, the annual Geminid meteor shower rained down on our fair planet this week. This beautiful skyscape collects about 70 of Gemini's…
Swimming on Jupiter
On October 29, the Juno spacecraft once again dove near the turbulent Jovian cloud tops. Its 16th orbital closest approach or perijove passage , brought Juno within 3,500…
3D Bennu
Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu . Shaped like a spinning top toy with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is…
M43: Orion Falls
Is there a waterfall in Orion? No, but some of the dust in M43 appears similar to a waterfall on Earth. M43 , part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex , is the often imaged but…
Arp 188 and the Tadpole's Tail
Why does this galaxy have such a long tail ? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted…
Viewing discoveries from 3 January 2019 through 11 December 2018.