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.
Zodiacal Road
What's that strange light down the road? Dust orbiting the Sun. At certain times of the year, a band of sun-reflecting dust from the inner Solar System appears prominently just…
M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind
Why is the Cigar Galaxy billowing red smoke? M82 , as this starburst galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81 . This doesn't fully…
HDR: Earth's Circular Shadow on the Moon
What could create such a large circular shadow on the Moon? The Earth. Last week's full Moon -- the Buck Moon -- was so full that it fell almost exactly in a line with the Sun and…
Moonquakes Surprisingly Common
Why are there so many moonquakes? Analyses of seismometers left on the moon by the Apollo moon landings reveals a surprising number of moonquake s occurring within 100 kilometers…
Apollo 11 Landing Panorama
Have you seen a panorama from another world lately? Assembled from high-resolution scans of the original film frames, this one sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the…
Tranquility Base Panorama
On July 20 , 1969 the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle safely touched down on the Moon. It landed near the southwestern corner of the Moon's Mare Tranquillitatis at a landing site…
Shadowed Moon and Mountain
On July 16 the Moon celebrated the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 with a lunar eclipse visible from much of planet Earth. In this view part of the lunar disk is…
The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun
That's no sunspot. It's the International Space Station (ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun. Sunspot s, individually, have a dark central umbra , a lighter surrounding…
Eagle Aurora over Norway
What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun five days before this 2012 image was taken, throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons,…
The Eagle Rises
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo view from lunar orbit. The 3D anaglyph was created from two photographs ( AS11-44-6633 , AS11-44-6634 ) taken by astronaut…
Magellanic Galaxy NGC 55
Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and a well-known satellite of our own…
The Ghost of Jupiter's Halo
Close-up images of NGC 3242 show the cast off shroud of a dying, sun-like star fancifully known as The Ghost of Jupiter nebula. But this deep and wide telescopic view also finds…
Birds During a Total Solar Eclipse
What do birds do during a total solar eclipse? Darkness descends more quickly in a total eclipse than during sunset, but returns just as quickly -- and perhaps unexpectedly to the…
The Galactic Center in Radio from MeerKAT
What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light,…
Crescent Saturn
Saturn never shows a crescent phase -- from Earth. But when viewed from beyond, the majestic giant planet can show an unfamiliar diminutive sliver. This image of crescent Saturn…
8 Minute and 30 Second Eclipse
The total phase of the July 2nd solar eclipse lasted about 4 minutes and 30 seconds at the point of maximum eclipse . On the surface of planet Earth, that was about 600 nautical…
La Silla Eclipse Sequence
The road to the high mountaintop La Silla Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert also led in to the path of July 2nd's total solar eclipse . Recorded at regular intervals…
In the Shadow of the Moon
On July 2 denizens of planet Earth could stand in the Moon's dark umbral shadow during South America's 2019 total solar eclipse. It first touched down in the Southern Pacific…
NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy
If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe containing billions of stars and situated about 40 million light-years away…
The Big Corona
Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun 's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is unparalleled . The human eye can…
M83: The Thousand-Ruby Galaxy
Big, bright, and beautiful, spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra . Prominent spiral arms…
A Solstice Night in Paris
The night of June 21 was the shortest night for planet Earth's northern latitudes, so at latitude 48.9 degrees north, Paris was no exception. Still, the City of Light had an…
The Longer Days
This persistent six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice (December 21, 2018 to June 16, 2019) into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph , the…
Noctilucent Clouds, Reflections, and Silhouettes
Sometimes it's night on the ground but day in the air. As the Earth rotates to eclipse the Sun, sunset rises up from the ground. Therefore, at sunset on the ground, sunlight still…
Viewing discoveries from 24 July 2019 through 26 June 2019.