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.
Comet R3 PanSTARRS Through Time
What happens to a comet as it leaves our inner Solar System? Now, the arrival of a comet into the inner Solar System is typically heralded with great fanfare and high hopes that…
Jupiter and Venus from Earth
It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet…
Charon: Moon of Pluto
A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier view of Charon, Pluto's largest moon . The high-resolution image was captured by the…
The Hydra Cluster of Galaxies
Within our own Milky Way galaxy, two bright, spiky stars stand like sentinels in the foreground of this cosmic snapshot . Far beyond them are the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster .…
A Planetary Nebula with Cosmic Buckyballs
What is happening inside this unusual nebula? Planetary nebula Tc 1 , captured here in exquisite detail by the James Webb Space Telescope , is the celestial site where buckyballs…
Andromeda Through Gas and Dust
Over 1000 years ago, Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi published humanity’s oldest known record of the Andromeda Galaxy in “The Book of Fixed Stars” ( Bodleian Library MS.…
The Vela Supernova Remnant
The explosion is over, but the consequences continue. About twelve thousand years ago, a relatively normal star in the constellation Vela suddenly exploded , creating a strange…
Saturn at Night
Telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it the star of star parties . But this stunning view of the outer gas gaint planet's rings and night side just isn't…
Eagle Nebula Pillars in Infrared from Hubble
Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. They are gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust. The intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars is…
Supermoon Versus Micromoon
What is so micro about tonight's blue micromoon? Just after sunset, a full moon will appear slightly smaller and dimmer than usual. The reason is that the Moon's fully illuminated…
Messier 104
A gorgeous spiral galaxy, Messier 104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central…
NGC 1514: The Crystal Ball Nebula
What do you see in this crystal ball? The featured image shows NGC 1514 , known as the Crystal Ball Nebula , observed by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea , in Hawai'i . NGC…
PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula
What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1 . This planetary nebula , the remnant of…
NGC 3660 and Burçin's Galaxy
The upper galaxy might be more photogenic, but the lower galaxy is more unusual. The galaxy up top is NGC 3660 , a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy in that it has…
Thackeray's Globules
What are these strange space globs? Situated in rich star field s and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar dust and gas are so large they might be able to…
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A Martian Eclipse: Phobos Crosses the Sun
What's that passing in front of the Sun? It looks like a moon, but it can't be Earth's Moon , because it isn't round. It's the Martian moon Phobos . The featured video was taken…
Messier 2
After the Crab Nebula , this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the…
The Nebulous Realm of WR 134
This cosmic snapshot covers a field of view over twice as wide as the full Moon within the boundaries of the high-flying constellation Cygnus. Made using astronomical narrowband…
A Collision of Galaxy Clusters
This big beautiful spiral shines in X-ray light . It is about 20 times larger than our Galaxy . It belongs to Abell 2029 , a galaxy cluster one billion light-years away. (To see…
The Dark Wolf Nebula
A dark wolf lies in gum. No, this isn’t a riddle! Today's image features the Dark Wolf Nebula ( Sandqvist-Lindroos 17), a spooky dust cloud embedded within the Gum 55 ( RCW 113)…
NGC 2170: The Angel Nebula
Is this a painting or a photograph? In this celestial abstract art composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 , also known as the Angel Nebula, shines just above the…
Unraveling NGC 3169
Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 looks to be unraveling like a ball of cosmic yarn. It lies some 70 million light-years away, south of bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation…
NGC 1300: Barred Spiral Galaxy
Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar . And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral . And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole . This all…
Aurora Slathers Up the Sky
Like salsa verde on your favorite burrito, a green aurora slathers up the sky in this 2017 June 25 snapshot from the International Space Station. About 400 kilometers (250 miles)…
Viewing discoveries from 8 June 2026 through 16 May 2026.