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.
Phases of Venus
Just as the Moon goes through phases , Venus' visible sunlit hemisphere waxes and wanes. This composite of backyard telescopic images illustrates the steady changes for Venus…
Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Milky Way
It is not a coincidence that planets line up. That's because all of the planets orbit the Sun in (nearly) a single sheet called the plane of the ecliptic . When viewed from inside…
Posters of the Solar System
Would you like a NASA astronomy-exploration poster? You are just one page-print away. Any of the panels you see on the featured image can appear on your wall . Moreover, this NASA…
Journey into the Cosmic Reef
What would you see if you could fly into the Cosmic Reef? The nebular cloud NGC 2014 appear to some like an ocean reef that resides in the sky, specifically in the LMC, the…
A Waterspout in Florida
What's happening over the water? Pictured here is one of the better images yet recorded of a waterspout , a type of tornado that occurs over water. Waterspouts are spinning…
The Dark River to Antares
A dark river seems to flow through this sky from the horizon toward colorful clouds near red giant star Antares. Murky looking, the dark river is a dusty nebula obscuring…
Galaxy Wars: M81 and M82
These two galaxies are far far away, 12 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear. On the left, with grand spiral arms and bright yellow core…
Comet Halley vs Comet SWAN
The pre-dawn hours of May 3rd were moonless as grains of cosmic dust streaked through southern skies above Reunion Island. Swept up as planet Earth plowed through dusty debris…
Jupiter in Infrared from Gemini
In infrared, Jupiter lights up the night. Recently, astronomers at the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii , USA , created some of the best infrared photos of Jupiter ever taken…
Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation Lyra
Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Small Harp (Lyra). That is why the famous meteor shower…
Behind Betelgeuse
What's behind Betelgeuse? One of the brighter and more unusual stars in the sky, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse can be found in the direction of famous constellation Orion.…
The Porpoise Galaxy from Hubble
What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown , was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning,…
Full Flower Moonrise
Rising as the Sun set, the Moon was bright and full in planet Earth skies on May 7 and known to some as a Flower Moon . Near the horizon it does seem to take on rose pink hues of…
Long Tailed Comet SWAN
Blowing in the solar wind the spectacular ion tail of Comet SWAN (C/2020 F8) extends far across this 10 degree wide telephoto field of view. Captured on May 2 its greenish coma…
Analemma of the Moon
An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. But the trick to imaging an analemma of the Moon is to…
LDN 1471: A Windblown Star Cavity
What is the cause of this unusual parabolic structure? This illuminated cavity, known as LDN 1471 , was created by a newly forming star , seen as the bright source at the peak of…
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…
Earth Flyby of BepiColombo
What it would look like to approach planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by ESA's and JAXA's robotic BepiColombo spacecraft last month as it swung…
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,…
Viewing discoveries from 21 May 2020 through 28 April 2020.