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.
Carina in Perspective
You need to be in the south, looking south, to see such a sky. And only then if you're lucky. Just above the picturesque tree is the impressive Carina Nebula , one of the few…
A Message from Earth
What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The featured message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of the Arecibo…
Radio, The Big Ear, and the Wow! Signal
Since the early days of radio and television we have been freely broadcasting signals into space. For some time now, we have been listening too. A large radio telescope at Ohio…
A View Toward M106
Big, bright, beautiful spiral, Messier 106 dominates this cosmic vista. The nearly two degree wide telescopic field of view looks toward the well-trained constellation Canes…
Andromeda Island Universe
The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31 , the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this…
The Ion Tail of New Comet SWAN
Newly discovered Comet SWAN has already developed an impressive tail. The comet came in from the outer Solar System and has just passed inside the orbit of the Earth. Officially…
The Kepler-90 Planetary System
Do other stars have planetary systems like our own ? Yes -- one such system is Kepler-90 . Cataloged by the Kepler satellite that operated from Earth orbit between 2009 and 2018,…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
How will humanity first learn of extraterrestrial life ? One possibility is to find it under the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus . A reason to think that life may exist…
Edwin Hubble Discovers the Universe
How big is our universe? This very question, among others , was debated by two leading astronomers 100 years ago today in what has become known as astronomy's Great Debate . Many…
Hubble's Cosmic Reef
These bright ridges of interstellar gas and dust are bathed in energetic starlight. With its sea of young stars, the massive star-forming region NGC 2014 has been dubbed the…
Lyrid Meteor Streak
Earth's annual Lyrid Meteor Shower peaked before dawn yesterday, as our fair planet plowed through debris from the tail of long-period comet Thatcher. In crisp, clear and moonless…
Planet Earth at Twilight
No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth . Instead, the shadow line or terminator is…
Eye on the Milky Way
Have you ever had stars in your eyes ? It appears that the eye on the left does, and moreover it appears to be gazing at even more stars. The featured 27-frame mosaic was taken…
IC 2944: The Running Chicken Nebula
To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944 , the Running…
Just Another Day on Aerosol Earth
It was just another day on aerosol Earth. For August 23, 2018, the identification and distribution of aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere is shown in this dramatic, planet-wide…
The Windmill and the Star Trails
Stars can't turn these old wooden arms, but it does look like they might in this scene from a rotating planet . The well-composed night skyscape was recorded from Garafia, a…
Comet ATLAS Breaks Up
Cruising through the inner solar system, Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) has apparently fragmented . Multiple separate condensations within its diffuse coma are visible in this telescopic…
A Cosmic Triangle
It was an astronomical triple play. Setting on the left, just after sunset near the end of last month, was our Moon -- showing a bright crescent phase. Setting on the right was…
NGC 253: The Silver Coin Galaxy
NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in smalltelescopes, it is more formally known as…
A Sailing Stone across Death Valley
How did this big rock end up on this strange terrain? One of the more unusual places here on Earth occurs inside Death Valley , California , USA . There a dried lakebed named…
The Horsehead Nebula in Infrared from Hubble
While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the…
Venus and the Pleiades in April
Shared around world in early April skies Venus, our brilliant evening star, wandered across the face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster. This timelapse image follows the path of…
Full Moon of Spring
From home this Full Moon looked bright . Around our fair planet it rose as the Sun set on April 7/8, the first Full Moon after the vernal equinox and the start of northern…
A Flow of Time
This surreal timelapse, landscape, panorama spans predawn, blue hour, and sunrise skies. Close to the start of planet Earth's northern hemisphere spring, the flow of time was…
Viewing discoveries from 5 May 2020 through 9 April 2020.