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.
Space Station Mir Over Earth
This picture of the Russian space station Mir over the Pacific Ocean was recorded by the Space Shuttle Discovery in February 1995. During this mission Discovery performed a…
The Far Side
This historic picture was humanity's first glimpse of the far side of the Moon . It was taken by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 in October of 1959. Luna 3 followed closely on the…
Elliptical Galaxy M87
Elliptical galaxy M87 is a type of galaxy that looks much different than our own Milky Way Galaxy . But even for an elliptical galaxy M 87 is peculiar. M87 is much bigger than an…
Spiral Galaxy M83
Long winding spiral arms are clearly evident on this spectacular picture of the spiral galaxy M83. The blue color of the spiral arms is caused by the relatively large fraction of…
Proplyds: Infant Solar Systems
The fuzzy blobs seen above may be some of the first ever images of entire solar systems forming right before our eyes. This close up of the Orion Nebulae taken by the Hubble Space…
White Dwarfs Cool
The circled stars in the above picture are from a class that is hard to see in the cosmos: white dwarfs . The entire photo covers a small region near the center of a globular…
The Last Moon Shot
In 1865 Jules Verne predicted the invention of a space capsule that could carry people. In his science fiction story “From the Earth to the Moon” , he outlined his vision of…
The Milky Way's Center
NASA's COBE satellite scanned the heavens at infrared wavelengths in 1990 and produced this premier view of the central region of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way is a…
Distant Galaxies
This Hubble Space Telescope image of a group of faint galaxies “far, far away” is a snap shot of the Universe when it was young. The bluish, irregularly shaped galaxies revealed…
Callisto: Dark Smashed Iceball
Callisto is a dirty battered world, showing the most beaten surface of Jupiter 's major moons. Made of a rocky core covered by fractured ice, Callisto 's past collisions with…
Europa: Ancient Water World
Beneath the cold icy surface of Jupiter 's moon Europa are probably the only oceans of water in our Solar System outside of Earth . These oceans, possibly 50 kilometers deep,…
Ganymede: Moonquake World
Ganymede probably undergoes frequent ground shaking events not unlike terrestrial earthquakes. Ganymede , the largest moon of Jupiter and the Solar System , has a thick outer…
Earth's Moon, A Familiar Face
The above mosaic of the Earth's Moon was compiled from photos taken by the spacecraft Clementine in 1994. This image represents the side of the Moon familiar to Earth dwellers.…
Hot Gas and Dark Matter
Is the gravity of the above galaxies high enough to contain the glowing hot gas? Superposed on an optical picture of a group of galaxies is an image taken in X-ray light. The…
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar 1910-1995
On August 21, 1995 one of the greatest astrophysicists of modern times passed away. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was a creative, prolific genius whose ability to combine…
X-Raying the Moon
Above is a picture of the Moon taken in X-rays by the Roentgen Observatory Satellite ROSAT in 1990. This famous picture shows three distinct regions: a bright X-ray sky, a bright…
Skylab Over Earth
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a Saturn V rocket in May 1973. Skylab was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes stayed as long as two and a half…
Saturn V: NASA's Largest Rocket
Pictured, a NASA Saturn V rocket blasts off on July 16th, 1969 carrying the crew of Apollo 11 to the Moon . The Saturn V rocket was the largest rocket ever used by NASA, and the…
Dusty Galaxy Centaurus A
One of the most unusual galaxies known, Centaurus A , is pictured above. Cen A is marked by dramatic dust lanes that run across the galaxy's center. These dust lanes are so thick…
Gamma Ray Bursts from the Unknown
Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) pose one of the greatest mysteries of modern astronomy. About once a day, the gamma-ray sky lights up with a spectacular explosion. No one knows what…
Two Tails of Comet West
Here Comet West is seen showing two enormous tails that wrap around the sky. The ion tale of a comet usually appears more blue and always points away from the Sun . The dust tail…
A World Explorer
Ferdinand Magellan was a world explorer. Many consider him the greatest navigator of Europe's 16th century age of sea going exploration and credit his expedition with the first…
A Radar Image of Planet Earth
This image of Mt. Rainier, Washington USA, planet Earth , was produced by the Spaceborne Radar Laboratory which flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994. Radar, short for RAdio…
A Venusian Tick
Data from the Magellan spacecraft has shown the Face of Venus to contain a host of volcanic features. This image shows an example of a fairly common type of venusian volcanic…
Viewing discoveries from 15 September 1995 through 23 August 1995.