What is NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day?

Every day since 1995, one photograph of the cosmos. No feed, no algorithm—just the universe, one frame at a time.

A 30-year-old ritual

APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) is run by NASA and Michigan Technological University. Each day astronomers Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell publish a single image—nebulae, eclipses, comets, galaxies—alongside a short caption written by an astronomer.

Where the pictures come from

Images are submitted by professional and amateur astronomers around the world and drawn from missions like Hubble and JWST. Every picture credits its author and links back to the original source. The archive now holds more than 10,000 entries, all publicly browsable.

Why people love it

• It is a calm, ad-free daily moment—30 seconds of perspective.
• The archive doubles as an illustrated history of modern astronomy.
• Picking any date shows what the universe looked like that day—popular for birthdays.

The easiest way to read APOD on iPhone

DailyApod brings the whole archive to your phone: today’s picture on open, a date picker for the full history, keyword search, favourites with iCloud sync, home screen widgets, and on-device caption translation.

Quick answers

Is APOD free? Yes, it is publicly available at apod.nasa.gov. Apps like DailyApod add a native, comfortable reading experience.

Can I use APOD images? Most are freely usable with credit—each entry states its copyright. Check the caption of the image you want.