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.
Finding Comet Lemmon
Tonight, if you can see the stars of the Big Dipper , then you can find comet Lemmon in your evening sky. After sunset, look for the faint but extended comet above your…
Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko Creates Its Tails
Where do comet tails come from? There are usually no obvious places on the nuclei of comets from which the jets that create comet tails emanate. One of the best images of emerging…
3D Bennu
Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu . Shaped like a spinning toy top with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is…
Ida and Dactyl: Asteroid and Moon
This asteroid has a moon. The robot spacecraft Galileo enroute to explore the Jovian system in 1993, encountered and photographed two asteroids during its long interplanetary…
Young Suns of NGC 7129
Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129 , some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus . While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only a few…
Rocket Launch Plume over Tucson
Yes, but can your sunset do this? Looking west from Tucson , Arizona , USA one day last month, the sunset sky looked strange when it briefly lit up with the plume of a rocket…
An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
Is there a monster in IC 1396 ? Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula , parts of gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on foreboding forms,…
Lemmon Tree
The tree is not in danger. That's because the comet pictured just above it, Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) , is far in the distance, well away from the Earth. Comet Lemmon now continues…
All the Water on Europa
How much of Jupiter's moon Europa is made of water? No one is sure, but probably a lot. Based on the Galileo probe data acquired during its exploration of the Jovian system from…
Manicouagan Impact Crater from Space
Orbiting 400 kilometers above Quebec, Canada, planet Earth, the International Space Station Expedition 59 crew captured this snapshot of the broad St. Lawrence River and curiously…
50 Light-years to 51 Pegasi
It's only 50 light-years to 51 Pegasi. That star's position is indicated in this snapshot from August 2025, taken on a night with mostly brighter stars visible above the dome at…
The Jenga Moon
That big, bright, beautiful Full Moon you watched rise on the night of October 6 was the Harvest Moon . Famed in festival, story, and song, Harvest Moon is just the traditional…
NGC 7380: The Wizard Nebula
What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas…
SN Encore: A Second Supernova Seen Several Times
Now a second supernova in this same galaxy is repeating. The cause is the gravitational lens effect of a massive foreground cluster of galaxies (MACS J0138) -- it creates multiple…
The Changing Ion Tail of Comet Lemmon
How does a comet tail change? It depends on the comet. The ion tail of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) has been changing markedly, as detailed in the featured image sequenced over six…
A Long Storm System on Saturn
It was one of the largest and longest lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen in late 2010, the featured cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn…
The Rotating Moon
No one on Earth sees the Moon rotate like this. That's because the Moon is tidally locked in synchronous rotation, showing only one side to denizens of our fair planet. Still,…
Pandora's Cluster of Galaxies
This deep field mosaicked image presents a stunning view of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 recorded by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam. Also dubbed Pandora's Cluster, Abell…
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…
NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula
Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light would suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light…
Comet Lemmon Brightens
Comet Lemmon is brightening and moving into morning northern skies. Besides Comet SWAN25B and Comet ATLAS , Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is now the third comet currently visible with…
Two Camera Comets in One Sky
It may look like these comets are racing, but they are not. Comets C/2025 K1 ATLAS (left) and C/2025 R2 SWAN (right) appeared near each other by chance last week in the featured…
Leopard Spots on Martian Rocks
What is creating these unusual spots? Light-colored spots on Martian rocks , each surrounded by a dark border, were discovered last year by NASA 's Perseverance Rover currently…
A Rocket in the Sun
On the morning of September 24 a rocket crosses the bright solar disk in this long range telescopic snapshot captured from Orlando, Florida. That's about 50 miles west of its…
Viewing discoveries from 20 October 2025 through 27 September 2025.