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.
Ice Clouds over a Red Planet
If you could stand on Mars -- what might you see? You might look out over a vast orange landscape covered with rocks under a dusty orange sky, with a blue-tinted Sun over the…
NGC 300: A Galaxy of Stars
This galaxy is unusual for how many stars it seems that you can see. Stars are so abundantly evident in this deep exposure of the spiral galaxy NGC 300 because so many of these…
Cosmic Latte: The Average Color of the Universe
What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what…
Winter and Summer on a Little Planet
Winter and summer appear to come on a single night to this stunning little planet . It's planet Earth of course. The digitally mapped , nadir centered panorama covers 360x180…
Messier 4
Messier 4 can be found west of bright red-giant star Antares, alpha star of the constellation Scorpius. M4 itself is only just visible from dark sky locations, even though the…
NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda
The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy along with the galaxy's pinkish star-forming regions. Also…
The Meteor and the Comet
How different are these two streaks? The streak on the upper right is Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas showing an impressive dust tail . The comet is a large and dirty iceberg that entered…
The Sombrero Galaxy from Webb and Hubble
This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy is one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo…
The Horsehead Nebula
One of the most identifiable nebulas in the sky, the Horsehead Nebula in Orion , is part of a large, dark, molecular cloud . Also known as Barnard 33, the unusual shape was first…
Journey to the Center of the Galaxy
What lies at the center of our galaxy? In Jules Verne's science fiction classic, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Professor Liedenbrock and his fellow explorers encounter…
Interplanetary Earth
In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant…
The Medusa Nebula
Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula . Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500…
The Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story , the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off…
Earthset from Orion
Eight billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space taken on 2022 November 21. On the sixth day of the Artemis I mission , their home world is setting behind…
Undulatus Clouds over Las Campanas Observatory
What's happening with these clouds? While it may seem that these long and thin clouds are pointing toward the top of a hill, and that maybe a world-famous observatory is located…
Stars and Dust in the Pacman Nebula
Stars can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular cloud s from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are…
LDN 1471: A Windblown Star Cavity
What is the cause of this unusual parabolic structure? This illuminated cavity, known as LDN 1471 , was created by a newly forming star , seen as the bright source at the peak of…
Pluto at Night
The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene . In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant…
Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3
Put on your red/blue glasses and gaze across the western Ocean of Storms on the surface of the Moon. The 3D anaglyph features Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visiting the Surveyor…
IC 348 and Barnard 3
A great nebulous region near bright star omicron Persei offers this study in cosmic contrasts. Captured in the telescopic frame is a colorful complex of dust, gas, and stars…
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365 from Webb
A mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That's twice…
NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula
How was the Crescent Nebula created? Looking like an emerging space cocoon , the Crescent Nebula, visible in the center of the featured image , was created by the brightest star…
The Unusual Tails of Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas
What created an unusual dark streak in Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas's tail? Some images of the bright comet during mid-October not only caught its impressively long tail and its thin…
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars . Named Valles Marineris , the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as…
Viewing discoveries from 3 December 2024 through 10 November 2024.