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 and Flame Nebulas
The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the orange emission nebula at the far right of the featured picture .…
Callisto: Dirty Battered Iceball
Its surface is the most densely cratered in the Solar System -- but what's inside? Jupiter 's moon Callisto is a battered ball of dirty ice that is slightly smaller than the…
NGC 7027: The Pillow Planetary Nebula
What created this unusual planetary nebula? Dubbed the Pillow Nebula and the Flying Carpet Nebula, NGC 7027 is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary…
A Two Percent Moon
A young crescent moon can be hard to see . That's because when the Moon shows its crescent phase (young or old) it can never be far from the Sun in planet Earth's sky . But even…
A Dark Veil in Ophiuchus
The diffuse hydrogen-alpha glow of emission region Sh2-27 fills this cosmic scene. The field of view spans nearly 3 degrees across the nebula-rich constellation Ophiuchus toward…
Galaxies, Stars, and Dust
This well-composed telescopic field of view covers over a Full Moon on the sky toward the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Of course the brighter stars show diffraction spikes ,…
WISPIT 2b: Exoplanet Carves Gap in Birth Disk
That yellow spot -- what is it? It's a young planet outside our Solar System. The featured image from the Very Large Telescope in Chile surprisingly captures a distant scene much…
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A Leaky Solar Prominence
What's hovering above the Sun? A solar prominence . A prominence is a crest of hot gas expelled from the Sun's surface that is held aloft by the Sun's magnetic field . Prominences…
The Meteor and the Star Cluster
Sometimes even the sky surprises you. To see more stars and faint nebulosity in the Pleiades star cluster ( M45 ), long exposures are made. Many times, less interesting items…
The Spinning Pulsar of the Crab Nebula
At the core of the Crab Nebula lies a city-sized, magnetized neutron star spinning 30 times a second. Known as the Crab Pulsar , it is the bright spot in the center of the gaseous…
Fishing for the Moon
How big is planet Earth's Moon ? Compared to other moons of the Solar System, it's number 5 on the largest to smallest ranked list , following Jupiter's moon Ganymede , Saturn's…
A Tale of Two Nebulae
This colorful telescopic view towards the musical northern constellation Lyra reveals the faint outer halos and brighter central ring-shaped region of M57, popularly known as the…
Mostly Perseids
In this predawn skyscape recorded during the early morning hours of August 13, mostly Perseid meteors are raining down on planet Earth. You can easily identify the Perseid meteor…
Perseid Meteors from Durdle Door
What are those curved arcs in the sky? Meteors -- specifically, meteors from this year's Perseid meteor shower . Over the past few weeks, after the sky darkened, many images of…
Giant Galaxies in Pavo
Over 500,000 light years across, NGC 6872 (bottom left) is a truly enormous barred spiral galaxy . At least 5 times the size of our own large Milky Way, NGC 6872 is the largest…
NGC 1309: A Useful Spiral Galaxy
This galaxy is not only pretty -- it's useful. A gorgeous spiral some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River ( Eridanus ).…
Asperitas Clouds Over New Zealand
What kind of clouds are these? Although their cause is presently unknown, such unusual atmospheric structures, as menacing as they might seem, do not appear to be harbingers of…
A Cool GIF of a 2025 Perseid
The camera battery died about 2am local time on August 12, while shooting in the bright moonlit skies from a garden in Chastre, Brabant Wallon, Belgium, planet Earth. But not…
Moonlight, Planets, and Perseids
In the predawn sky on August 13, two planets were close. And despite the glare of a waning gibbous Moon, bright Jupiter and even brighter Venus were hard to miss. Their brilliant…
M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
In 1716 , English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is…
Trapezium: In the Heart of Orion
What lies in the heart of Orion? Trapezium: four bright stars, that can be found near the center of this sharp cosmic portrait . Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in…
Perseids from Perseus
Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Perseus. That is why the meteor shower that peaks tonight…
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Closest Ever Images Near the Sun
Everybody sees the Sun. Nobody's been there. Starting in 2018, though, NASA launch ed the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to investigate regions near to the Sun for the first…
Zodiacal Road
What's that strange light down the road? Dust orbiting the Sun. At certain times of the year, a band of sun-reflecting dust from the inner Solar System appears prominently just…
Viewing discoveries from 2 September 2025 through 10 August 2025.