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.
Lunar Craters Langrenus and Petavius
The history of the Moon is partly written in its craters. Pictured here is a lunar panorama taken from Earth featuring the large craters Langrenus , toward the left, and Petavius…
A Mercury Transit Sequence
Tomorrow -- Monday -- Mercury will cross the face of the Sun , as seen from Earth. Called a transit , the last time this happened was in 2016 . Because the plane of Mercury's…
Saturn the Giant
On May 25, 1961 U.S. president John Kennedy announced the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the decade. By November 9, 1967 this Saturn V rocket was ready for…
NGC 3572 and the Southern Tadpoles
This cosmic skyscape features glowing gas and dark dust clouds along side the young stars of NGC 3572 . A beautiful emission nebula and star cluster in far southern skies, the…
Messier 45: The Daughters of Atlas and Pleione
Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters open star cluster is well-known for its striking blue reflection nebulae .…
21st Century M101
One of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is…
Spiral Galaxies Spinning Super-Fast
Why are these galaxies spinning so fast? If you estimated each spiral 's mass by how much light it emits, their fast rotations should break them apart. The leading hypothesis as…
Near the Center of the Lagoon Nebula
Stars are battling gas and dust in the Lagoon Nebula but the photographer s are winning. Also known as M8, this photogenic nebula is visible even without binoculars towards the…
Daphnis and the Rings of Saturn
What's happening to the rings of Saturn? A little moon making big waves. The moon is 8-kilometer Daphnis and it is making waves in the Keeler Gap of Saturn 's rings using just its…
Inside the Flame Nebula
The Flame Nebula stands out in this optical image of the dusty, crowded star forming regions toward Orion's belt , a mere 1,400 light-years away. X-ray data from the Chandra…
The Day After Mars
October 31, 1938 was the day after Martians encountered planet Earth, and everything was calm. Reports of the invasion were revealed to be part of a Halloween radio drama, the now…
The Ghostly Veil Nebula
A ghostly visage on a cosmic scale , these remains of shocked, glowing gas haunt planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus and form the Veil Nebula . The nebula itself…
M42: Inside the Orion Nebula
The Great Nebula in Orion , an immense, nearby starbirth region , is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas . Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge…
Curiosity Rover Finds a Clay Cache on Mars
Why is there clay on Mars? On Earth, clay can form at the bottom of a peaceful lake when specific minerals trap water. At the pictured site on Mars , the robotic rover Curiosity…
The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun
Typically, the International Space Station is visible only at night. Slowly drifting across the night sky as it orbits the Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) can be seen…
Ghost Aurora over Canada
What does this aurora look like to you? While braving the cold to watch the skies above northern Canada early one morning in 2013, a most unusual aurora appeared. The aurora…
Gravity's Grin
Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, published over 100 years ago, predicted the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. And that's what gives these distant galaxies such…
The Ghosts of Cassiopeia
These bright rims and flowing shapes look ghostly on a cosmic scale. A telescopic view toward the constellation Cassiopeia , the colorful skyscape features swept-back,…
Dark Seahorse in Cepheus
Light-years across, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern…
Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh
The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style…
Night Sky Reflections from the World's Largest Mirror
What's being reflected in the world's largest mirror? Stars, galaxies, and a planet. Many of these stars are confined to the grand arch that runs across the image, an arch that is…
A Mercury Transit Music Video from SDO
What's that small black dot moving across the Sun? Mercury. Possibly the clearest view of Mercury crossing in front of the Sun in 2016 May was from Earth orbit. The Solar Dynamics…
Pluto at Night
The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene , a stunning spacebased view with the Sun 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was…
All Female Spacewalk Repairs Space Station
The failed unit was beyond the reach of the robotic Canadarm2 . Therefore, this repair of the International Space Station would require humans. The humans on duty were NASA's…
Viewing discoveries from 11 November 2019 through 19 October 2019.