NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

A partial rainbow and a golden fan of anticrepuscular rays make sunlight seem to originate from the wrong side of the sky. Raindrops, cloud shadows, and perspective explain why the real Sun is behind the camera.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this...

The Treble Clef's looping radio structure sits within hot, X-ray-emitting gas in a merging galaxy cluster. Combined observations suggest that the collision revived particles left behind by an earlier black-hole outburst.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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The Eagle Nebula's Pillars of Creation become an audible experience as telescope image data are translated into sound. Listen to a complete sonification, then explore how the mapping makes astronomical structures accessible in another way.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.<...

Rosetta's close-up view of Comet 67P reveals a rugged nucleus releasing jets of material near the Sun. Following the comet over time showed scientists how its landscape changes and what its escaping gas and dust contain.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this...

A predawn Falcon 9 launch shares the sky with the International Space Station as a sunlit exhaust plume expands overhead. This timelapse shows the contrast between a cargo spacecraft heading toward orbit and a reusable booster returning to Earth.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date...

A near-infrared camera reveals the Milky Way above Manhattan's bright skyline. By rejecting much of the city's visible-light glow while retaining infrared starlight, the photograph shows how wavelength selection can improve astronomical contrast.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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Mars appears among the stars of the Beehive Cluster beneath a colorful aurora. The scene combines a temporary planetary alignment with green and red light emitted high in Earth's atmosphere.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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A desert stairway appears to rise into the Milky Way, surrounded by zodiacal light and colorful airglow. This scene brings together starlight from our galaxy, sunlight scattered by Solar System dust, and light emitted by Earth's atmosphere.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of...

Earth's crescent Moon shares this view with Jupiter and its four large Galilean moons. Their apparent alignment and the Moon's faint earthshine reveal how distance, perspective, and reflected sunlight shape the scene.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

A deep hole in Antarctic ice is part of IceCube’s unusual way of studying the universe. Buried sensors detect faint light from particles produced in rare neutrino interactions, giving astronomers another cosmic messenger.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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The Moon’s farside is a heavily cratered landscape with far fewer dark lava plains than the side we see from Earth. This spacecraft mosaic reveals a contrasting surface history, while tidal locking explains why we normally see only the other face.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo co...

Stickney Crater dominates this close-up of Phobos, one of Mars’s small moons. Its enormous impact scar and streaked walls reveal how collisions and even very weak gravity reshape a tiny world.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link above the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today’s image, Saturn’s atmospheric bands, intricate rings, and several moons appear in a remarkable ground-based photograph. Steady air and lucky imaging help reveal details that Earth’s atmosphere would otherwise blur.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see supernova remnant Pa 30 which resembles a cosmic firework, but it is likely the remnant of a supernova observed in 1181. Its surviving central star and newly revealed chains of gas knots offer clues to an unusual, incomplete stellar explosion.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the...

In today's image, we seeIn today's video, we see a remarkable view of Earth's complete auroral oval captured in ultraviolet light by the SMILE spacecraft. This time-lapse reveals the changing structure of the aurora and helps scientists investigate how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetic field.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the...

In today's image, we see an unusually deep view of M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, revealing faint stellar streams and an extensive halo surrounding its familiar bright disk. These structures offer clues to the galaxy's history of gravitational interactions and mergers.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to...

In today's image, we see a remarkable display of supernumerary rainbows photographed over New Jersey. The additional colored bands inside the main rainbow are produced by interference, revealing the wave nature of light.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see a remarkable selfie taken by NASA's Curiosity rover while exploring Vera Rubin Ridge on Mars. The image combines dozens of photographs into a panoramic view of the rover and the rugged Martian landscape.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date...

In today's image, we see a complete collection of the Sharpless Catalog - all 313 nebulae images over about three and a half years by one photographer.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today’s image, we see the Harvest Moon rising over Sicily near an erupting Mount Etna. The composite captures the Moon’s changing position during twilight while volcanic ash, clouds, and atmospheric color transform the landscape below.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of t...

In today’s image, we see an example of a peculiar galaxy — one whose shape has been distorted by tidal interactions with a nearby galaxy.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the planetary nebula known as the Shrimp Nebula. This is the type of nebula which forms at the end of the life of a star like our Sun. In this case, the entire nebula is moving rapidly to the upper left.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image...

In today's image, we see what the average color of the universe would be if one averaged the spectra of hundreds of thousands of galaxies.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see an image of the Andromeda Galaxy consisting of hundreds of five minute exposures stacked together. The first image shows the raw image with satellite trails, airplanes, cosmic rays, and bad pixels. The second image shows the cleaned up version after processing.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image...

In today's image, we see on o the Perseus meteors from last month reflected off several of the panels in one of the telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the globular star cluster Omega Centauri. This may actually be the remnant core of a small galaxy that has been disrupted by the Milky Way.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see five supernovae in the sky in this deep image requiring 200 hours' of observing of this portion of the sky.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see a newly formed crater on the Moon known as McGetchin. This formed sometime between April and May of 2024 based on images seen before and after by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.<...

In today's image, we see a chance alignment with our Sun. On the solar surface we see sunspots. and passing in front of it, by coincidence, we see the International Space Station and an airplane.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.<...

In today's image, we see the Cocoon Nebula - a star forming region in the constellation of Cygnus.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see a solar analemma as seen over the Callanish stone circle in Scotland.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the zodiacal light stretching up from the horizon. The planets Jupiter and Mars are visible as well.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see one of the spiral galaxies in our Local Group. This contains our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. M33 would be the third largest galaxy in our Local Group.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see a treasure chest in which the jewels inside a stars which have blown the lid off of the chest with their strong stellar winds.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see two images of M64 - Visible light from Hubble and infrared from Webb. This allows us to see different parts of the galaxy.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the end of an occultation. This occurred when our Moon passed in front of Venus. In the image, we see Venus shortly after it emerged from behind our Moon.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

In today's image, we see a periodic table of the element which shows the primary source for each of the elements and where it is produced.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see a time-lapse video made from 250 images taken over half an hour as the comet rose in the morning sky back in July 2020.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see an image taken by Neil Armstrong from the surface of the Moon back in 1969. In the image, Buzz Aldrin is setting up an experiment to catch some particles from the solar wind which would later be returned to Earth for study.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image...

In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as M83. This is a spiral galaxy with many red star forming regions populating the spiral arms.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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