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.
Sonified: The Jellyfish Nebula Supernova Remnant
What does a supernova remnant sound like? Although sound is a compression wave in matter and does not carry into empty space, interpretive sound can help listeners appreciate and…
A Total Solar Eclipse Close-Up in Real Time
How would you feel if the Sun disappeared? Many eclipse watchers across the USA surprised themselves in 2017 with the awe that they felt and the exclamations that they made as the…
Martian Moon Eclipses Martian Moon
What if there were two moons in the sky -- and they eclipsed each other? This happens on Mars. The featured video shows a version of this unusual eclipse from space. Pictured are…
Looking Sideways from the Parker Solar Probe
What's happening near the Sun? To help find out, NASA launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to investigate regions closer to the Sun than ever before. The PSP's looping…
The Snows of Churyumov-Gerasimenko
You couldn't really be caught in this blizzard while standing by a cliff on periodic comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Orbiting the comet in June of 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft's…
Illustris: A Simulation of the Universe
How did we get here? Click play, sit back, and watch. A computer simulation of the evolution of the universe provides insight into how galaxies formed and perspectives into…
Solar Minimum versus Solar Maximum
The surface of our Sun is constantly changing. Some years it is quiet, showing relatively few sunspots and active regions. Other years it is churning, showing many sunspots and…
Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano
These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna) appears so large here because she is being photographed through a…
A Martian Dust Devil Spins By
It moved across the surface of Mars -- what was it? A dust devil. Such spinning columns of rising air are heated by the warm surface and are also common in warm and dry areas on…
Gone in 60 Seconds: A Green Flash Sunset
In 60 seconds, this setting Sun will turn green. Actually, the top of the Sun already appears not only green, but wavey -- along with all of its edges. The Sun itself is unchanged…
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…
HESS Telescopes Explore the High-Energy Sky
They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs, but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of…
Planet Earth at Night II
Recorded during 2017, timelapse sequences from the International Space Station are compiled in this serene video of planet Earth at Night. Fans of low Earth orbit can start by…
Moons Across Jupiter
Jupiter's moons circle Jupiter. The featured video depicts Europa and Io, two of Jupiter's largest moons, crossing in front of the grand planet's Great Red Spot, the largest known…
Star Eats Planet
It’s the end of a world as we know it. Specifically, the Sun-like star ZTF SLRN-2020 was seen eating one of its own planets. Although many a planet eventually dies by spiraling…
Simulation: A Disk Galaxy Forms
How did we get here? We know that we live on a planet orbiting a star orbiting a galaxy, but how did all of this form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving…
Wanderers
How far out will humanity explore? If this video's fusion of real space imagery and fictional space visualizations is on the right track, then at least the Solar System. Some of…
M1: The Expanding Crab Nebula
Are your eyes good enough to see the Crab Nebula expand? The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact,…
Video: Powers of Ten
How different does the universe look on very small scales? On very large scales? The most famous short science film of its generation gives breathtaking comparisons. That film,…
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…
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…
Jupiter Rotates as Moons Orbit
Jupiter and its moons move like our Sun and its planets. Similarly, Jupiter spins while its moons circle around. Jupiter’s rotation can be observed by tracking circulating dark…
Expanding Plume from DART's Impact
What happens if you crash a spaceship into an asteroid? In the case of NASA's DART spaceship and the small asteroid Dimorphos, as happened last week, you get quite a plume. The…
DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos
Could humanity deflect an asteroid headed for Earth? Yes. Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth's past, sometimes causing mass extinctions of life. To…
Viewing discoveries from 25 March 2024 through 27 September 2022.