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.
The Horsehead Nebula
Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape . Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula , it is some…
Space Station, Solar Prominences, Sun
That's no sunspot. It's the International Space Station (ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun. Sunspot s, individually, have a dark central umbra , a lighter surrounding…
Planet Earth from Orion
One year ago a Space Launch System rocket left planet Earth on November 16, 2022 at 1:47am EST carrying the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis I mission, the first integrated test of…
Nightlights in Qeqertaq
Light pollution is usually not a problem in Qeqertaq . In western Greenland the remote coastal village boasted a population of 114 in 2020. Lights still shine in its dark skies…
Daytime Moon Meets Morning Star
Venus now appears as Earth's brilliant morning star, shining above the southeastern horizon before dawn. For early morning risers, the silvery celestial beacon rose predawn in a…
M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab
Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets . In fact, the Crab Nebula is now known to be a supernova remnant, an…
Three Planets Rock
In the fading darkness before dawn, a tilted triangle appeared to balance atop a rock formation off the southern tip of Sicily . Making up the points of the triangle are three of…
Andromeda over the Alps
Have you ever seen the Andromeda galaxy? Although M31 appears as a faint and fuzzy blob to the unaided eye, the light you see will be over two million years old, making it likely…
Gibbous Moon beyond Swedish Mountain
This is a gibbous Moon. More Earthlings are familiar with a full moon, when the entire face of Luna is lit by the Sun , and a crescent moon , when only a sliver of the Moon's face…
The SAR Arc and the Milky Way
This broad, luminous red arc was a surprising visitor to partly cloudy evening skies over northern France. Captured extending toward the zenith in a west-to-east mosaic of images…
UHZ1: Distant Galaxy and Black Hole
Dominated by dark matter , massive cluster of galaxies Abell 2744 is known to some as Pandora's Cluster . It lies 3.5 billion light-years away toward the constellation Sculptor.…
M1: The Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous 18th century list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova…
Perseus Galaxy Cluster from Euclid
There's a new space telescope in the sky: Euclid . Equipped with two large panoramic cameras, Euclid captures light from the visible to the near- infrared . It took five hours of…
Red Aurora over Italy
What was that red glow on the horizon last night? Aurora. Our unusually active Sun produced a surface explosion a few days ago that sent out a burst of electrons, protons, and…
Creature Aurora Over Norway
It was Halloween and the sky looked like a creature. Exactly which creature, the astrophotographer was unsure (but possibly you can suggest one ). Exactly what caused this eerie…
Dinkinesh Moonrise
Last Wednesday the voyaging Lucy spacecraft encountered its first asteroid, 152830 Dinkinesh, and discovered the inner-main belt asteroid has a moon. From a distance of just over…
Jupiter by Moonlight
That bright beacon you've seen rising in the east just after sunset is Jupiter. Climbing high in midnight skies, our Solar System's ruling gas giant was at its 2023 opposition,…
The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies
Named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found, the Fornax Cluster is one of the closest clusters of galaxies. About 62 million light-years…
Annular Solar Eclipse over Utah
Part of the Sun disappeared earlier this month, but few people were worried. The missing part, which included the center from some locations, just went behind the Moon in what is…
Halloween and the Wizard Nebula
Halloween's origin is ancient and astronomical. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day , a day halfway between an equinox (equal day /…
Reflections of the Ghost Nebula
Do any shapes seem to jump out at you from this interstellar field of stars and dust? The jeweled expanse, filled with faint, starlight-reflecting clouds, drifts through the night…
A Partial Lunar Eclipse
What's happened to the Moon? Within the last day, part of the Moon moved through the Earth's shadow . This happens about once or twice a year , but not every month since the…
The Ghosts of Gamma Cas
Gamma Cassiopeiae shines high in northern autumn evening skies. It's the brightest spiky star in this telescopic field of view toward the constellation Cassiopeia. Gamma Cas…
Encke and the Tadpoles
History's second known periodic comet is Comet Encke (2P/Encke) . As it swings through the inner Solar System, Encke's orbit takes it from an aphelion, its greatest distance from…
Viewing discoveries from 20 November 2023 through 27 October 2023.