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.
Saturn and the Da Vinci Glow
On February 2nd early morning risers saw Saturn near an old Moon low on the eastern horizon. On that date bright planet, sunlit crescent, and faint lunar night side were captured…
Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is an alluring sight in southern skies. But this deep and detailed telescopic view, over 10 months in the making, goes beyond what is visible to…
Manicouagan Impact Crater from Space
Orbiting 400 kilometers above Quebec, Canada, planet Earth, the International Space Station Expedition 59 crew captured this snapshot of the broad St. Lawrence River and curiously…
The Cat's Eye Nebula in Optical and X-ray
To some it looks like a cat's eye. To others, perhaps like a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of brightest and most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of…
Meteor Misses Galaxy
The galaxy was never in danger. For one thing, the Triangulum galaxy (M33), pictured, is much bigger than the tiny grain of rock at the head of the meteor. For another, the galaxy…
N11: Star Clouds of the LMC
Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust , and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies .…
The Galaxy, the Jet, and the Black Hole
Bright elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is home to the supermassive black hole captured by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope in the first ever image of a black hole. Giant…
Southern Cross to Eta Carinae
Tracking along the southern Milky Way this beautiful celestial mosaic was recorded under dark Brazilian skies. Spanning some 20 degrees it actually starts with the dark expanse of…
Pan-STARRS Across the Lagoon
Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent, cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, the bright star forming region is about 5,000…
The Shape of the Southern Crab
The symmetric, multi-legged appearance of the Southern Crab Nebula is certainly distinctive. About 7,000 light-years distant toward the southern sky constellation Centaurus, its…
Meteors, Comet, and Big Dipper over La Palma
Meteor showers are caused by streams of solid particles, dust size and larger, moving as a group through space. In most cases, the orbits of these meteor streams can be identified…
Spiral Aurora over Icelandic Divide
Admire the beauty but fear the beast. The beauty is the aurora overhead , here taking the form of great green spiral , seen between picturesque clouds with the bright Moon to the…
Falcon Heavy Launch Close Up
Twenty seven Merlin rocket engines are firing in this close-up of the launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket. Derived from three Falcon 9 first stage rockets with nine Merlin rocket…
Milky Way in Northern Spring
A postcard from planet Earth , this springtime night skyscape looks over Alandan lake in the Alborz mountains. Taken after local midnight on April 17, the central Milky Way is…
The Leo Trio
This group is popular in the northern spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet , the three magnificent galaxies gather in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest…
Messier 81
One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81 . Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th…
In the Vicinity of the Cone Nebula
Strange shapes and textures can be found in neighborhood of the Cone Nebula . The unusual shapes originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic…
Enhanced: The Dolphin Cloud on Jupiter
Do you see the dolphin-shaped cloud on Jupiter? The cloud was visible last year during perijove 16 , the sixteenth time that NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno passed near Jupiter…
Rigil Kentaurus and Sandqvist 169
Rigil Kentaurus is the bright star near the top of this broad southern skyscape. Of course it's probably better known as Alpha Centauri , nearest star system to the Sun. Below it…
A Cosmic Rose: The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers , but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in…
First Horizon-Scale Image of a Black Hole
What does a black hole look like? To find out, radio telescopes from around the Earth coordinated observations of black holes with the largest known event horizon s on the sky.…
Moon Occults Saturn
Sometimes Saturn disappears. It doesn't really go away, though, it just disappears from view when our Moon moves in front . Such a Saturnian eclipse was visible along a small…
AZURE Vapor Tracers over Norway
What's happening in the sky? The atmosphere over northern Norway appeared quite strange for about 30 minutes last Friday when colorful clouds, dots, and plumes suddenly appeared.…
A Scorpius Sky Spectacular
If Scorpius looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpius more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well-known but rarely pointed out…
Viewing discoveries from 4 May 2019 through 7 April 2019.