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.
NGC 6995: The Bat Nebula
Can you see the bat? It haunts this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula . The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death…
Quarter Moon and Sister Stars
Nine days ago, two quite different sky icons were imaged rising together. Specifically, Earth's Moon shared the eastern sky with the sister stars of the Pleiades cluster, as…
A Triangular Prominence Hovers Over the Sun
Why is there a triangle hovering over the Sun? Although the shape is unusual, the type of structure is not: it is part of an evolving solar prominence . Looping magnetic fields on…
The Moon Dressed Like Saturn
Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn't -- what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon . The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of…
IFN and the NGC 7771 Group
Galaxies of the NGC 7771 Group are featured in this intriguing skyscape . Some 200 million light-years distant toward the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7771 is the large, edge-on…
Southern Moonscape
The Moon's south pole is toward the top left of this detailed telescopic moonscape . Captured on August 23, it looks across the rugged southern lunar highlands. The view's…
Star Factory Messier 17
A nearby star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius . At that distance, this 1.5 degree wide field-of-view…
Tulip Nebula and Black Hole Cygnus X-1
When can you see a black hole, a tulip, and a swan all at once? At night -- if the timing is right, and if your telescope is pointed in the right direction . The complex and…
Gallery:
What if Saturn disappeared? Sometimes, it does. It doesn't really go away, though, it just disappears from view when our Moon moves in front . Such a Saturnian eclipse, more…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
Do underground oceans vent through canyons on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space,…
South Pacific Shadowset
The full Moon and Earth's shadow set together in this island skyscape. The alluring scene was captured Tuesday morning, August 20, from Fiji, South Pacific Ocean, planet Earth.…
Supernova Remnant CTA 1
There is a quiet pulsar at the heart of CTA 1. The supernova remnant was discovered as a source of emission at radio wavelengths by astronomers in 1960 and since identified as the…
The Dark Tower in Scorpius
In silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the arachnological constellation Scorpius , this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark…
Fermi's 12-year All-Sky Gamma-ray Map
Forget X-ray vision — imagine what you could see with gamma-ray vision! The featured all-sky map shows what the universe looks like to NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope .…
Supermoon Beyond the Temple of Poseidon
A supermoon occurred yesterday. And tonight's moon should also look impressive. Supermoons appear slightly larger and brighter than most full moons because they reach their full…
IC 5146: The Cocoon Nebula
Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146 , the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-year s wide. Soaring high in northern summer night…
Sky Full of Arcs
On August 11 a Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched from a rotating planet. With a small satellite on board its mission was dubbed A Sky Full of SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radar…
Meteor Borealis
A single exposure made with a camera pointed almost due north on August 12 recorded this bright Perseid meteor in the night sky west of Halifax, Nova Scotia , Canada. The meteor's…
Late Night Vallentuna
Bright Mars and even brighter Jupiter are in close conjunction just above the pine trees in this post-midnight skyscape from Vallentuna , Sweden. Taken on August 12 during a…
Meteors and Aurora over Germany
This was an unusual night. For one thing, the night sky of August 11 and 12, earlier this week, occurred near the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower . Therefore, meteors…
Giant Jet from the International Space Station
What's that on the horizon? When circling the Earth on the International Space Station early last month , astronaut Matthew Dominick saw an unusual type of lightning just beyond…
Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge
What's happening in the sky above Stonehenge? A meteor shower: specifically, the Perseid meteor shower . A few nights ago, after the sky darkened , many images of meteors from…
The Light, Dark, and Dusty Trifid
Messier 20 , popularly known as the Trifid Nebula, lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our…
A Perseid Below
Denizens of planet Earth typically watch meteor showers by looking up . But this remarkable view , captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by…
Viewing discoveries from 4 September 2024 through 9 August 2024.