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.
Ghost Aurora over Canada
What does this aurora look like to you? While braving the cold to watch the skies above northern Canada early one morning in 2013, a most unusual aurora appeared. The aurora…
Quarter Moons
Half way between New Moon and Full Moon is the Moon's first quarter phase . That's a quarter of the way around its moonthly orbit. At the first quarter phase, half the Moon's…
Galaxies and a Comet
Galaxies abound in this sharp telescopic image recorded on October 12 in dark skies over June Lake, California. The celestial scene spans nearly 2 degrees within the boundaries of…
A Sunrise at Sunset Point
This timelapse series captured on October 14 is set against the sunrise view from Sunset Point, Bryce Canyon, planet Earth . Of course on that date the New Moon caught up with the…
Dust and the Western Veil Nebula
It's so big it is easy to miss. The entire Veil Nebula spans six times the diameter of the full moon , but is so dim you need binoculars to see it. The nebula was created about…
PDS 70: Disk, Planets, and Moons
It's not the big ring that's attracting the most attention. Although the big planet-forming ring around the star PDS 70 is clearly imaged and itself quite interesting. It's also…
Eclipse Rings
She knew everything but the question. She was well aware that there would be a complete annular eclipse of the Sun visible from their driving destination: Lake Abert in Oregon .…
An Eclipse Tree
Yes, but can your tree do this? If you look closely at the ground in the featured image, you will see many images of yesterday's solar eclipse -- created by a tree. Gaps between…
Circular Sun Halo
Want to see a ring around the Sun? It's easy to do in daytime skies around the world. Created by randomly oriented ice crystals in thin high cirrus clouds, circular 22 degree…
Hydrogen Clouds of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy Messier 33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the…
Mu Cephei
Mu Cephei is a very large star. An M-class supergiant some 1500 times the size of the Sun, it is one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye, and even one of the largest…
NGC 1097: Spiral Galaxy with Supernova
What's happening in the lower arm of this spiral galaxy? A supernova . Last month, supernova SN 2023rve was discovered with UAE 's Al-Khatim Observatory and later found to be…
Hidden Orion from Webb
The Great Nebula in Orion has hidden stars. To the unaided eye in visible light, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion . But this image was taken by the…
A Distorted Sunrise Eclipse
Yes, but have you ever seen a sunrise like this? Here, after initial cloudiness, the Sun appeared to rise in two pieces and during a partial eclipse in 2019, causing the…
Plane, Clouds, Moon, Spots, Sun
What's that in front of the Sun? The closest object is an airplane , visible just below the Sun's center and caught purely by chance. Next out are numerous clouds in Earth's…
The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda
This picture of Andromeda shows not only where stars are now, but where stars will be. The big, beautiful Andromeda Galaxy , M31, is a spiral galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years…
Edwin Hubble Discovers the Universe
How big is our universe? This question, among others , was debated by two leading astronomers in 1920 in what has since become known as astronomy's Great Debate . Many astronomers…
Ring of Fire over Monument Valley
Tracking along a narrow path, the shadow of a new moon will race across North, Central, and South America, on October 14. When viewed from the shadow path the apparent size of the…
IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula
Does this nebula look like the head of a witch? The nebula is known popularly as the Witch Head Nebula because, it is said, the nebula's shape resembles a Halloween-style…
MyCn 18: The Engraved Hourglass Planetary Nebula
Do you see the hourglass shape -- or does it see you? If you can picture it, the rings of MyCn 18 trace the outline of an hourglass -- although one with an unusual eye in its…
Sprite Lightning in High Definition
Sometimes lightning occurs out near space. One such lightning type is red sprite lightning , which has only been photographed and studied on Earth over the past 25 years. The…
A Desert Eclipse
A good place to see a ring-of-fire eclipse, it seemed, would be from a desert. In a desert, there should be relatively few obscuring clouds and trees. Therefore late December of…
A Harvest Moon over Tuscany
For northern hemisphere dwellers, September's Full Moon was the Harvest Moon . Reflecting warm hues at sunset, it rises behind cypress trees huddled on a hill top in Tuscany,…
Back from Bennu
Back from asteroid 101955 Bennu , a 110-pound, 31-inch wide sample return capsule rests in a desert on planet Earth in this photo, taken at the Department of Defense Utah Test and…
Viewing discoveries from 22 October 2023 through 29 September 2023.