Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Planetary Nebula NGC 1514 from Webb
What happens when a star runs out of nuclear fuel ? For stars like our Sun , the center condenses into a white dwarf while the outer atmosphere is expelled into space to appear as…
The Galactic Center in Radio from MeerKAT
What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light,…
An Unusual Hole in Mars
What created this unusual hole in Mars? Actually, there are numerous holes pictured in this Swiss cheese-like landscape , with all-but-one of them showing a dusty, dark, Martian…
Moon Near the Edge
Most of us watch the Moon at night. But the Moon spends nearly as many daylight hours above our horizon, though in bright daytime skies the lunar disk looks pale and can be a…
The ISS Meets Venus
Made with a telescope shaded from bright sunlight by an umbrella, on April 5 a well-planned video captured a crescent Venus shining in clear daytime skies from Shoreline,…
38 Hours with the M81 Group
From a garden on planet Earth, 38 hours of exposure with a camera and small telescope produced this cosmic photo of the M81 galaxy group. In fact, the group's dominant galaxy M81…
HH 49: Interstellar Jet from Webb
What's at the tip of this interstellar jet? First let's consider the jet: it is being expelled by a star system just forming and is cataloged as Herbig-Haro 49 (HH 49). The star…
Moon Visits Sister Stars
Sometimes, the Moon visits the Pleiades. Technically, this means that the orbit of our Moon takes it directly in front of the famous Pleiades star cluster , which is far in the…
NGC 4414: A Flocculent Spiral Galaxy
How much mass do flocculent spirals hide? The featured image of flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope to help answer this question.…
Moonquakes Surprisingly Common
Why are there so many moonquakes? Analyses of seismometers left on the moon during the Apollo moon landings reveal a surprising number of moonquake s occurring within 100…
The Gargoyles' Eclipse
In dramatic silhouette against a cloudy daytime sky over Paris, France, gargoyles cast their monstrous gaze outward from the west facade of Notre Dame Cathedral. Taken on March 29…
Hickson 44 in Leo
Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies , now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups .…
The Da Vinci Glow
A 26 hour old Moon poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape. The one second long exposure was captured near moonset on March…
Jupiter and Ring in Infrared from Webb
Why does Jupiter have rings? Jupiter's main ring was discovered in 1979 by NASA's passing Voyager 1 spacecraft, but its origin was then a mystery. Data from NASA's Galileo…
A Double Sunrise from a Partial Eclipse
Can the Sun appear to rise twice at the same time? This was just the case a few days ago from Les Escoumins, Quebec, Canada as our Solar System's bright central orb rose just as…
Parker: The Solar System from Near the Sun
If you watch long enough, a comet will appear. Before then, you will see our Solar System from inside the orbit of Mercury as recorded by NASA's Parker Solar Probe looping around…
A Partial Solar Eclipse over Iceland
What if the Sun and Moon rose together? That happened yesterday over some northern parts of planet Earth as a partial solar eclipse occurred shortly after sunrise. Regions that…
Stereo Helene
Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Helene, small, icy moon of Saturn. Appropriately named, Helene is a Trojan moon, so called because it orbits at a Lagrange point .…
Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, eons of constant micrometeorite bombardment have blasted away at…
Messier 81
One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81 . Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th…
Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula
You'd think the Pacman Nebula would be eating stars, but actually it is forming them. Within the nebula , a cluster's young, massive stars are powering the pervasive nebular glow.…
A Blue Banded Blood Moon
What causes a blue band to cross the Moon during a lunar eclipse? The blue band is real but usually quite hard to see. The featured HDR image of last week's lunar eclipse, however…
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A Total Lunar Eclipse Over Uruguay
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 last week from Uruguay . During a…
Ancient Ogunquit Beach on Mars
This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars . The featured 360-degree panorama , horizontally compressed , was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red…
Viewing discoveries from 15 April 2025 through 23 March 2025.