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.
Tarantula
Explanation : NGC 2070 is an immense star forming region in a nearby galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud . Its spidery appearance is responsible for its popular name, “The…
Venus' Once Molten Surface
Explanation : If you could look at Venus with radar eyes - this is what you might see. This computer reconstruction of the surface of Venus was created from data from the Magellan…
Bright Star Knots in NGC 4038
Explanation : This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so should be quite tumultuous. NGC…
M100: A Grand Design
Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a Grand Design spiral galaxy . A large galaxy of over 100 billion or so stars with well defined spiral arms , it…
Saturn with Moons Tethys and Dione
Saturn and two of its larger moons - Tethys and Dione - were photographed by the Voyager 1 spacecraft which flew by the planet in November of 1980. This picture gives an…
A Cosmic Snowball
Like cosmic snowballs, fluffy comet-like objects the size of houses and composed mostly of water-ice, may be pummeling planet Earth 5 to 30 times a minute. This controversial…
Southern Neptune
Neptune , the Solar System's outermost gas giant planet, is 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Twelve years after a 1977 launch , Voyager 2 flew by Neptune and found…
Mars: Just The Fiction
For centuries, astronomers have observed Mars , patiently compiling many facts and theories. Like a distant mirror of Earth dwellers' hopes and fears for the future, Mars, the…
Moonrise, Planet Earth
During the Astro-1 astronomy mission of December, 1990, Space Shuttle astronauts photographed this stunning view of the full moon rising above the Earth's limb. In the foreground,…
Old Faithful Meets Hale-Bopp
As Comet Hale-Bopp leaves our Northern Skies, it provides us with yet another burst of joy. On May 11th the fading comet was photographed behind the famous “ Old Faithful ” water…
A High Energy Fleet
Looking like a fleet of futuristic starcruisers, NASA's highly successful series of High Energy Astrophysical Observatory (HEAO) spacecraft appear poised over planet Earth .…
Saturn's Rings Seen Sideways
Saturn's rings are actually very thin. This picture from the Hubble Space Telescope was taken on August 6, 1995 when the rings lined up sideways as seen from Earth . Saturn 's…
The Heart Of Orion
Newborn stars lie at the heart of the Orion Nebula , hidden from view by the dust and gas of the giant Orion Molecular Cloud number 1 (OMC-1). Sensitive to invisible infrared…
Bound For Mars
Two NASA spacecraft, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder , are presently approaching the red planet . Pathfinder is scheduled to land on July 4th and Global Surveyor due to…
GRB970508 Delivers Predicted Radio Emission
New evidence bolsters once controversial claims that Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions ever found by humanity. Two weeks ago, an average GRB became…
Shells in the Egg Nebula
The Egg Nebula is taking a beating. Like a baby chick pecking its way out of an egg, the star in the center of the Egg Nebula is casting away shells of gas and dust as it slowly…
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365
Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a bar , but perhaps not so prominent as the one in NGC 1365, shown above. The…
The First Explorer
The first US spacecraft was Explorer 1 . The cylindrical 30 pound satellite was launched (above) as the fourth stage of a Jupiter-C rocket (a modified US Army Redstone ballistic…
7,000 Stars And The Milky Way
This panorama view of the sky is really a drawing. It was made in the 1940s under the supervision of astronomer Knut Lundmark at the Lund Observatory in Sweden. To create the…
Signed, “A Black Hole”
This artistic image is actually the signature of a supermassive black hole in the center of distant galaxy M84 - based on data recently recorded by Hubble's new Space Telescope…
Hale-Bopp: Climbing Into Southern Skies
Fighting the glow of the setting sun and the city lights of Cape Town, South Africa, comet Hale-Bopp is just visible near the center of this panoramic view - photographed on May…
Hale-Bopp's Fickle Ion Tail
What's happening to Comet Hale-Bopp's blue ion tail? The comet's ion tail is fluctuating more rapidly as it passes a region of changing solar wind . As the comet passes from north…
Optical Transient Near GRB970508 Shows Distant Redshift
The GRB distance scale controversy may have just ended with a flash . Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are powerful explosions occurring in seemingly random positions on the sky. They are…
Lightning on Jupiter
Does lightning occur only on Earth? Spacecraft in our Solar System have detected radio signals consistent with lightning on other planets, including Venus , Jupiter , Saturn ,…
Viewing discoveries from 4 June 1997 through 12 May 1997.