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.
Dark Skies: Turn on the Night
Have you ever experienced a really dark night sky? One common and amazing feature is the glowing band of our Milky Way galaxy stretching from horizon to horizon. If you live in or…
Anemic Spiral NGC 4921 from Hubble
How far away is spiral galaxy NGC 4921? It's surpringly important to know. Although presently estimated to be about 300 million light years distant, a more precise determination…
Young Star Cluster Trumpler 14 from Hubble
Why does star cluster Trumpler 14 have so many bright stars? Because it is so young. Many cluster stars have formed only in the past 5 million years and are so hot they emit…
Rho Ophiuchi Wide Field
The colorful clouds surrounding the star system Rho Ophiuchi compose one of the closest star forming regions. Rho Ophiuchi itself is a binary star system visible in the blue…
Ash and Lightning above an Icelandic Volcano
Why did a picturesque volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash? Although the large ash plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly noticeable…
Milky Way, Launch, and Landing
The Milky Way doesn't look quite this colorful and bright to the eye, but a rocket launch does. So a separate deep exposure with a sensitive digital camera was used in this…
Halley Dust and Milky Way
Grains of cosmic dust streaked through the mostly moonless night skies of May 7. Swept up as planet Earth plowed through the debris streams left behind by periodic Comet Halley ,…
Messier 5
“Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the Serpent [Serpens] ...” begins the description of the 5th entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous…
Jupiter Marble from Juno
What does Jupiter look like up close? Most images of Jupiter are taken from far away , either from Earth or from a great enough distance that nearly half the planet is visible.…
The Great Nebula in Carina
What's happening in the center of the Carina Nebula? Stars are forming, dying, and leaving an impressive tapestry of dark dusty filaments. The entire Carina Nebula , cataloged as…
Virtual Flyby of the Whirlpool Galaxy
What would it look like to fly over a spiral galaxy? To help visualize this, astronomers and animators at the Space Telescope Science Institute computed a virtual flyby of the…
Saturn, Titan, Rings, and Haze
This is not a solar eclipse . Pictured here is a busy vista of moons and rings taken at Saturn. The large circular object in the center of the image is Titan , the largest moon of…
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 .…
All of Mercury
Only six years ago, the entire surface of planet Mercury was finally mapped. Detailed observations of the innermost planet's surprising crust began when the robotic MESSENGER…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 16 May 2019 through 23 April 2019.