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.
Airglow Ripples over Tibet
Why would the sky look like a giant target? Airglow . Following a giant thunderstorm over Bangladesh in late April, giant circular ripples of glowing air appeared over Tibet ,…
Artemis 1 Moonshot
When the Artemis 1 mission's Orion spacecraft makes its November 21 powered flyby of the Moon, denizens of planet Earth will see the Moon in a waning crescent phase . The…
The Protostar within L1527
The protostar within dark cloud L1527 is a mere 100,000 years old, still embedded in the cloud of gas and dust that feeds its growth. In this NIRCam image from the James Webb…
Planet Earth from Orion
A Space Launch System rocket left planet Earth on Wednesday, November 16 at 1:47am EST carrying the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis 1 mission, the first integrated test of NASA's…
In the Arms of NGC 1097
Spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, about 45 million light-years away in the heated constellation Fornax . Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming…
Wolf's Cave Nebula
The mysterious blue reflection nebula found in catalogs as VdB 152 or Ced 201 really is very faint. It lies at the tip of the long dark nebula Barnard 175 in a dusty complex that…
NGC 7380: The Wizard Nebula
What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas…
Flying Saucer Crash Lands in Utah Desert
A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. The year was 2004, and no space aliens were involved. The…
Eclipse in the City
A darker Moon sets over Manhattan in this night skyscape. The 16 frame composite was assembled from consecutive exposures recorded during the November 8 total lunar eclipse . In…
Blood Moon, Ice Giant
On November 8 the Full Moon turned blood red as it slid through Earth's shadow in a beautiful total lunar eclipse. During totality it also passed in front of, or occulted, outer…
Total Lunar Eclipse
The beginning, middle, and end of a journey through planet Earth's colorful umbral shadow is captured in this timelapse composite image of a total lunar eclipse . Taken on…
The Asymmetric Nebula Surrounding Wolf-Rayet Star 18
Why does the nebula around the star WR-18 shine brighter on one side? Also known as NGC 3199 , this active star and its surrounding nebula lie about 12,000 light-years away toward…
Galaxies: Wild's Triplet from Hubble
How many galaxies are interacting here? This grouping of galaxies is called the Wild Triplet , not only for the discoverer , but for the number of bright galaxies that appear. It…
A Total Lunar Eclipse Over Tajikistan
If the full Moon suddenly faded, what would you see? The answer was recorded in a dramatic time lapse video taken during the total lunar eclipse in 2011 from Tajikistan. During a…
Dark Ball in Inverted Starfield
Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar? If so, that might be because it is our Sun. In the featured image from 2012, a detailed solar view was captured originally in a…
Lunar Eclipse at the South Pole
Last May 16 the Moon slid through Earth's shadow, completely immersed in the planet's dark umbra for about 1 hour and 25 minutes during a total lunar eclipse. In this composited…
InSight's Final Selfie
The Mars InSight lander returned its first image from the Red Planet's flat, equatorial Elysium Planitia after a successful touchdown on November 26, 2018. The history making…
M33: The Triangulum Galaxy
The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy . M33…
A Partial Eclipse of an Active Sun
Watch for three things in this unusual eclipse video. First, watch for a big dark circle to approach from the right to block out more and more of the Sun. This dark circle is the…
NGC 6357: The Lobster Nebula
Why is the Lobster Nebula forming some of the most massive stars known? No one is yet sure . Cataloged as NGC 6357, the Lobster Nebula houses the open star cluster Pismis 24 near…
LDN 43: The Cosmic Bat Nebula
What is the most spook-tacular nebula in the galaxy? One contender is LDN 43, which bears an astonishing resemblance to a vast cosmic bat flying amongst the stars on a dark…
Night on a Spooky Planet
What spooky planet is this ? Planet Earth of course, on a dark and stormy night in 2013 at Hverir , a geothermally active area along the volcanic landscape in northeastern Iceland…
LDN 673: Dark Clouds in Aquila
Part of a dark expanse that splits the crowded plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the Aquila Rift arcs through planet Earth's skies near bright star Altair . In eerie silhouette…
Seven Years of Halley Dust
History's first known periodic comet Halley (1P/Halley) returns to the inner Solar System every 75 years or so. The famous comet made its last appearance to the naked-eye in 1986.…
Viewing discoveries from 20 November 2022 through 28 October 2022.