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.
X-Ray Superbubbles in Galaxy NGC 3079
What created these huge galactic superbubbles? Two of these unusual bubbles , each spanning thousands of light-years , were recently discovered near the center of spiral galaxy…
Celestial Alignment over Sicilian Shore
This was a sunrise to remember. About a month ago, just before the dawn of the Sun , an impressive alignment of celestial objects was on display to the east. Pictured, brightest…
The Orion Bullets
Why are bullets of gas shooting out of the Orion Nebula? Nobody is yet sure. First discovered in 1983, each bullet is actually about the size of our Solar System , and moving at…
NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula
The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects . Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years, NGC 6302 is no exception. With…
A Charioteer's Comet
Still racing across planet Earth's night skies, Comet Iwamoto (C/2018 Y1) shares this pretty telescopic field of view with stars and nebulae of northern constellation Auriga, the…
Sharpest Ultima Thule
On January 1, New Horizons swooped to within 3,500 kilometers of the Kuiper Belt world known as Ultima Thule . That's about 3 times closer than its July 2015 closest approach to…
Magnetic Orion
Can magnetism affect how stars form? Recent analysis of Orion data from the HAWC+ instrument on the airborne SOFIA observatory indicate that, at times, it can. HAWC+ is able to…
Simulation TNG50: A Galaxy Cluster Forms
How do clusters of galaxies form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving computer simulations are created to help find out. A recent effort is TNG50 from…
Red Sprite Lightning over Kununurra
What are those red filaments in the sky? It is a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago: red sprites . Recent research has shown that following a powerful…
The Expanding Echoes of Supernova 1987A
Can you find supernova 1987A? It isn't hard -- it occurred at the center of the expanding bullseye pattern). Although this stellar detonation was first seen in 1987, light from SN…
The Stars of the Triangulum Galaxy
Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, stars of the Triangulum Galaxy are resolved in this sharp mosaic from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys ( ACS ). The…
NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge
Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours…
Reflections on vdB 9
Centered in a well-composed celestial still life, pretty, blue vdB 9 is the 9th object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this telescopic…
Doomed Star Eta Carinae
Eta Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when - it may be next year, it may be one million years from now. Eta Carinae 's mass - about 100 times greater than our Sun…
Comet Iwamoto Before Spiral Galaxy NGC 2903
It isn't every night that a comet passes a galaxy. Last Thursday, though, binocular comet C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto)) moved nearly in front of a spiral galaxy of approximately the same…
Dragon Aurora over Iceland
Have you ever seen a dragon in the sky? Although real flying dragons don't exist, a huge dragon-shaped aurora developed in the sky over Iceland earlier this month . The aurora was…
Shadow of a Martian Robot
What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human ? Then you might have been the Opportunity rover exploring Mars. Opportunity explored the red planet from 2004 to 2018,…
NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
NGC 2359 is a helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god , Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years…
Opportunity at Perseverance Valley
Opportunity had already reached Perseverance Valley by June of 2018. Its view is reconstructed in a colorized mosaic of images taken by the Mars Exploration Rover's Navcam. In…
Solar System Family Portait
On Valentine's Day in 1990, cruising four billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back one last time to make this first ever Solar System family portrait . The…
The Helix Nebula in Hydrogen and Oxygen
Is the Helix Nebula looking at you? No, not in any biological sense, but it does look quite like an eye. The Helix Nebula is so named because it also appears that you are looking…
Plane Crossing a Crescent Moon
No, this is not a good way to get to the Moon . What is pictured is a chance superposition of an airplane and the Moon. The contrail would normally appear white, but the large…
New Data: Ultima Thule Surprisingly Flat
Ultima Thule is not the object humanity thought that it was last month. When the robotic New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past the distant asteroid Ultima Thule (officially 2014…
Venus Unveiled
What does Venus look like beneath its thick clouds? These clouds keep the planet's surface hidden from even the powerful telescopic eyes of Earth-bound astronomers. In the early…
Viewing discoveries from 5 March 2019 through 10 February 2019.