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.
CMB Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun . The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy . The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies . The…
Nova Scotia Northern Lights
This almost otherworldly display of northern lights was captured in clear skies during the early hours of March 31 from 44 degrees north latitude, planet Earth. In a five second…
Leaning Tower, Active Sun
The natural filter of a hazy atmosphere offered this recognizable architecture and sunset telephoto view on March 27. Dark against the solar disk, large sunspots in solar active…
Exploring the Antennae
Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus , two large galaxies are colliding. Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 , very…
Animation: Odd Radio Circles
What do you call a cosmic puzzle that no one expected to see? In this case, Odd Radio Circles, aka ORCs. ORC-1 typifies the enigmatic five objects, only visible at radio…
Venus and Mars: Passing in the Night
When two planets pass on the night sky, they can usually be seen near each other for a week or more. In the case of this planetary conjunction , Venus and Mars passed within 4…
Gems of a Maldivean Night
The southernmost part of the Milky Way contains not only the stars of the Southern Cross, but the closest star system to our Sun -- Alpha Centauri. The Southern Cross itself is…
Titan Seas Reflect Sunlight
Why would the surface of Titan light up with a blinding flash? The reason: a sunglint from liquid seas. Saturn's moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the…
Pluto at Night
The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene . In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant…
The Medusa Nebula
Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500…
Arp 78: Peculiar Galaxy in Aries
Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries . Some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way…
The Bubble Nebula from Hubble
Massive stars can blow bubbles. The featured image shows perhaps the most famous of all star-bubbles, NGC 7635, also known simply as The Bubble Nebula . Although it looks…
A Whale of an Aurora over Swedish Forest
What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun earlier this month, throwing a cloud of fast-moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the…
The Sky in 2021
What if you could see the entire sky -- all at once -- for an entire year? That, very nearly, is what is pictured here. Every 15 minutes during 2021, an all-sky camera took an…
A Picturesque Equinox Sunset
What's that at the end of the road? The Sun. Many towns have roads that run east - west, and on two days each year, the Sun rises and sets right down the middle . Today is one of…
2MASS J17554042+6551277
2MASS J17554042+6551277 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but that's the name, a coordinate-based catalog designation, of the star centered in this sharp field of view. Fans of…
A Filament in Monoceros
Bluish reflection nebulae seem to fill this dusty expanse. The sharp telescopic frame spans over 1 degree on the sky toward the faint but fanciful constellation Monoceros , the…
Centaurus A
A mere 11 million light-years away, Centaurus A is the closest active galaxy to planet Earth. Spanning over 60,000 light-years, the peculiar elliptical galaxy also known as NGC…
The Observable Universe
How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the…
A Road to the Stars
Pictured -- a very scenic road to the stars. The road approaches La Silla Observatory in Chile , with the ESO 's 3.6-meter telescope just up ahead. To the left are some…
Star Formation in the Eagle Nebula
Where do stars form? One place, star forming regions known as “EGGs”, are being uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16). Short for…
Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way
Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow . Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however -- like an approaching storm…
Point Reyes Milky Way
Northern winter constellations and a long arc of the Milky Way are setting in this night skyscape looking toward the Pacific Ocean from Point Reyes on planet Earth's California…
When Rainbows Smile
Want to see a rainbow smile? Look near the zenith (straight up) when the sun is low in the sky and you might. This example of an ice halo known as a circumzenithal arc was…
Viewing discoveries from 3 April 2022 through 11 March 2022.