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.
Blasting Off From the Moon
How did the astronauts get back from the Moon ? The Lunar Module that landed two astronauts on the Moon actually came apart. The top part containing the astronauts carried…
The First Lunar Observatory
The first and only lunar astronomical observatory was deployed by the Apollo 16 crew in 1972. The Far Ultraviolet Camera / Spectrograph used a 3-inch diameter telescope to…
Apollo 16: Exploring Plum Crater
Apollo 16 spent three days on Earth's Moon in April 1972. The fifth lunar landing mission out of six, Apollo 16 was famous for deploying and using an ultraviolet telescope as the…
The North America Nebula
Here's a familiar shape in an unfamiliar location! This emission nebula is famous partly because it resembles Earth 's North American Continent . To the right of the North America…
Sagittarius and the Central Milky Way
What does the center of our Milky Way Galaxy look like? No one knows! It is not possible to see the Galactic center in light our eyes are sensitive to because the thick dust in…
Impact! 65 Million Years Ago
What killed the dinosaurs? Their sudden disappearance 65 million years ago, along with about 70 percent of all species then living on Earth, is known as the K-T event…
Mir Dreams
This dream-like image of Mir was recorded by astronauts as the Space Shuttle Atlantis approached the Russian Space Station prior to docking during the STS-76 mission . Sporting…
6 Up 5 Down
This fish-eye view of a dramatic night launch of the Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-76 was recorded on March 22, 1996. The mission carried 6 astronauts aloft , and returned with…
The Iron Moon
In March and April of 1994 the unmanned Clementine spacecraft demonstrated the technique of prospecting on the Moon from lunar orbit. To accomplish this, Clementine turned an…
The Pulsar Powered Crab
In the Summer of 1054 A.D. Chinese astronomers reported that a star in the constellation of Taurus suddenly became as bright as the full Moon. Fading slowly, it remained visible…
Sunshine, Earthshine at the Lunar Limb
This dramatic image of the Moon's edge against a background of distant stars is from a perspective impossible for groundbased telescopes. It was taken by a star tracker camera…
The COMPTEL Gamma-Ray Sky
This premier gamma-ray view of the sky was produced by the COMPTEL instrument onboard NASA's orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory . The entire sky is seen projected on a…
The Pipe Dark Nebula
The dark nebula predominant at the lower left of the above photograph is known as the Pipe Nebula . The dark clouds, suggestively shaped like smoke rising from a pipe, are caused…
Aurora Crown the Earth
What do aurora look like from space? The POLAR spacecraft answered this by photographing an auroral oval surrounding the north pole of the Earth, causing displays on both the…
Alpha Centauri: The Closest Star System
The closest star system to the Sun is the Alpha Centauri system . Of the three stars in the system, the dimmest -- called Proxima Centauri -- is actually the nearest star . The…
The Shuttle Launches an Inflatable Antenna
High above the Earth the Space Shuttle Endeavor launches a new type of instrument - an inflatable antenna. The officially designated Inflatable Antenna Experiment was released…
In the Center of 30 Doradus
In the center of 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. The center of this cluster, known as R136 , is boxed in the upper right portion…
Stellar Violence in 30 Doradus
The largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies lies in our neighboring galaxy the LMC . Were 30 Doradus at the distance of the Orion…
Star Cluster in the Rosette Nebula
Embedded in the center of the colorful and photogenic Rosette Nebula is a bright, young open cluster . The bright blue stars in this cluster, labelled NGC 2244, emit ultraviolet…
The Iron Sun
The ultraviolet light emitted by eleven times ionized iron at temperatures over 2 million degrees Farenheit was used to record the above picture of the Sun on May 16 . The image…
Helios Helium
Above is an image of the relatively quiet Sun made on May 18 in light emitted by ionized Helium atoms in the Solar chromosphere . Helium was first discovered in the Sun in 1868,…
Nearby Dwarf Galaxy Leo I
Leo I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies dominated by our Milky Way Galaxy and M31 . Leo I is thought to be the most distant of the eleven known small…
The Sun Today
Our Sun shows a different face every day. The above picture was taken on May 15, but a similar picture of the Sun actually taken today can be found here . The above picture was…
Comet Hyakutake and a Solar Flare
A rare coincidence was recently captured by the orbiting SOHO spacecraft . During the closest approach to the Sun of Comet Hyakutake on May 1, SOHO photographed the comet . By…
Viewing discoveries from 9 June 1996 through 17 May 1996.