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.
A Volcano of Fire under a Milky Way of Stars
Sometimes it's hard to decide which is more impressive -- the land or the sky. On the land of the featured image , for example, the Volcano of Fire ( Volcn de Fuego ) is seen…
A Solar Prominence Eruption from SDO
One of the most spectacular solar sights is an erupting prominence. In 2011, NASA's Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressively large prominence…
Planet of the Tajinastes
What bizarre planet are these alien creatures from? It's only planet Earth , of course. The planet's home galaxy the Milky Way stretches across a dark sky in the panoramic,…
Boulders on Bennu
An abundance of boulders litters the surface asteroid 101955 Bennu in this dramatic close-up from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Taken on March 28 from a distance of just 3.4…
Moons Near Jupiter
On May 20, a nearly Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmed the moonlight, the single exposure reveals the familiar…
Primordial Contact Binary 2014 MU69
Primordial contact binary 2014 MU69 , also known as Ultima Thule, really is very red. In fact, it's the reddest outer solar system object ever visited by a spacecraft from Earth.…
Deep Field: Nebulae of Sagittarius
These three bright nebulae are often featured on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way . In fact, 18th century…
Planets of the Solar System: Tilts and Spins
How does your favorite planet spin? Does it spin rapidly around a nearly vertical axis, or horizontally, or backwards? The featured video animates NASA images of all eight planets…
A Circumhorizontal Arc Over Ohio
Why would clouds appear to be different colors? The reason here is that ice crystals in distant cirrus clouds are acting like little floating prisms . Sometimes known as a fire…
Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan
Atlas , Daphnis , and Pan are small, inner, ring moons of Saturn. They are shown at the same scale in this montage of images by the Cassini spacecraft that made its grand final…
RS Puppis
Pulsating RS Puppis , the brightest star in the image center , is some ten times more massive than our Sun and on average 15,000 times more luminous. In fact, RS Pup is a Cepheid…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 27 May 2019 through 4 May 2019.