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 Ring of Fire Sunrise Solar Eclipse
What's rising above the horizon behind those clouds? It's the Sun. Most sunrises don't look like this, though, because most sunrises don't include the Moon. In the early morning…
Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth
What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend…
SpaceX Demo-2 Launch
Clouds are white but the sky is dark in this snapshot of Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The dramatic daytime sky is partly due to the black and white photo…
NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
NGC 2359 is a helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god , Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years…
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies some 70 million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus . This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the…
Orion over Argentine Mountains
Do you recognize the constellation of Orion? It may be harder than usual in today's featured image because the camera has zoomed in on the center, and the exposure is long enough…
Atmospheric Ring of Venus
Why is Venus surrounded by a bright ring? Sometimes called a ring of fire , this rare ring is caused by the Sun's light being visible all around an object. Usually seen around the…
Halo of the Cat's Eye
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky . Its haunting symmetries are seen in the very central region of this stunning false-color…
Comet PanSTARRs and the Galaxies
Comet PanSTARRs, C/2017 T2 , shared this stunning telescopic field of view with galaxies M81 and M82 on May 22/23. Of course, the galaxies were some 12 million light-years distant…
Dragon over Central Park
Still bathed in sunlight the International Space Station (ISS) arced through this Manhattan evening sky on May 30. Moving left to right, its bright trail was captured in this…
Portrait of NGC 3628
Sharp telescopic views of NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep portrait of the magnificent, edge-on spiral galaxy puts some…
The Dance of Venus and Earth
Every time Venus passes the Earth, it shows the same face. This remarkable fact has been known for only about 50 years, ever since radio telescopes have been able to peer beneath…
Novel Coronavirus Attacks Humanity
Humanity is under attack. The attack is not from large tentacle-flailing aliens , but from invaders so small they can barely be seen, and so strange they are not even clearly…
The Lively Center of the Lagoon Nebula
The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year…
Aurora over Sweden
It was bright and green and stretched across the sky. This striking aurora display was captured in 2016 just outside of Östersund , Sweden . Six photographic fields were merged to…
Green Flashes: Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury
Follow a sunset on a clear day against a distant horizon and you might glimpse green just as the Sun disappears from view. The green flash is caused by refraction of light rays…
Mercury Meets Crescent Venus
That's not a bright star and crescent Moon caught between branches of a eucalyptus tree. It's Venus in a crescent phase and Mercury. Near the western horizon after sunset, the two…
Reflecting the International Space Station
Still bathed in sunlight, the International Space Station arced through the evening sky over lake Wulfsahl-Gusborn in northern Germany, just after sunset on March 25. The familiar…
Earth and Moon through Saturn's Rings
What are those dots between Saturn's rings? Our Earth and Moon . Just over three years ago, because the Sun was temporarily blocked by the body of Saturn, the robotic Cassini…
The Milky Way over Snow-Capped Himalayas
What's higher than the Himalayas? Although the Himalayan Mountains are the tallest on planet Earth, they don't measure up to the Milky Way . Visible above the snow-capped…
Mystic Mountain Monster being Destroyed
Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The huge monster, actually an inanimate series of pillars of gas and dust, measures light…
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars . Named Valles Marineris , the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as…
Ghost Fungus to Magellanic Cloud
Stars shine and satellites glint in this clear, dark, night sky over Wannon Falls Reserve, South West Victoria, Australia. In fact the fuzzy, faint apparition above the tree tops…
South of Carina
With natal dust clouds in silhouette against glowing atomic gas, this colorful and chaotic vista lies within one of the largest star forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy, the…
Viewing discoveries from 15 June 2020 through 22 May 2020.