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.
Unusual M82: The Cigar Galaxy
Something strange happened to this galaxy, but what? M82 is a nearby galaxy in the group of galaxies dominated by itself, M81 , and NGC 3077 . M82 is thought by some to be limping…
A Spiral Galaxy Gallery
A progression of beautiful spiral galaxies is illustrated above with three photographs from NASA's Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT). Flying above the Earth's obscuring layer of…
Asteroids
No asteroid or comet is known to be on a collision course with Earth. The asteroid designated 1997 XF11 had been predicted to come uncomfortably close, but new estimates place its…
Moon Shadow
When the Moon's shadow reached out and touched the Earth last month, the result was a Solar Eclipse . Such an eclipse is total only for observers located along a narrow path…
A Total Eclipse of the Sun
On February 26th, it was dark during the day. This total solar eclipse was the last visible from the Americas for this millennium. A total solar eclipse is exciting partly because…
Cracks and Ridges on Europa
Which way to the interstate? What appears to be a caricature of a complex highway system on Earth is actually a system of ridges and cracks on the icy surface of Jupiter 's moon…
Yogi Rock on Mars
Yogi is possibly the best photographed rock on Mars . By combining many pictures taken during the Mars Pathfinder Mission last year, scientists were able to create a…
Shuttle Engine Blast
The Space Shuttle Discovery 's orbital maneuvering system (OMS) engine firing produced this dramatic flare as it cruised “upside down” in low Earth orbit. Discovery was named for…
NGC 1818: A Young Globular Cluster
Globular clusters once ruled the Milky Way . Back in the old days , back when our Galaxy first formed, perhaps thousands of globular clusters roamed our Galaxy. Today, there are…
Water Ice At The Lunar Poles
After seven weeks in lunar orbit, instruments on board NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft have produced strong evidence for water ice on the Moon . While not in extensive sheets,…
Canaries Sky
This gorgeous view of stars, nebulae, and the Milky Way comes from the dark night sky above the lovely island of La Palma in the Canaries archipelago . The picture was made by a…
Aurora Over Alaska
Higher than the highest mountain , higher than the highest airplane, lies the realm of the aurora . Aurora rarely reach below 60 kilometers, and can range up to 1000 kilometers.…
560 Kilometers Above Europa
This is the closest photograph ever taken of Europa . Last December, NASA's spacecraft Galileo swept past the Jovian moon and took photographs which were released yesterday .…
Rumors of a Strange Universe
In a meeting in California two weeks ago, unpublished results were presented indicating that most of the energy in our universe is not in stars or galaxies but is tied to space…
A Sky Full Of Hydrogen
Interstellar space is filled with extremely tenuous clouds of gas which are mostly Hydrogen. The neutral hydrogen atom (HI in astronomer's shorthand) consists of 1 proton and 1…
Eagle EGGs in M16
Star forming regions known as “EGGs” are uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula ( M 16). EGGs, short for evaporating gaseous globules , are…
Solar Eclipse: A Composite View
Yesterday , the Moon's shadow reached out and touched the Earth , treating a large portion of the Western Hemisphere to an Eclipse of the Sun . This composite image combines…
A Southern Sky View
From horizon to horizon, the night sky above Loomberah, New South Wales, Australia was photographed by astronomer Gordon Garradd on March 22, 1996. Garradd used a home made…
The Solar Neighborhood
You are here. The orange dot in the above false-color drawing represents the current location of the Sun among local gas clouds in the spiral Milky Way Galaxy . These gas clouds…
The Lyman Alpha Forest
We live in a forest. Strewn throughout the universe are “trees” of hydrogen gas that absorb light from distant objects. These gas clouds leave numerous absorption lines in a…
M104: The Sombrero Galaxy
What's going on in the center of this spiral galaxy ? Named the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like resemblance, M104 features a prominent dust lane and a bright halo of stars and…
Southern Lights and Shuttle Glow
A background of distant stars, sinuous and spiky bands of Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) , and the faint glow of charged plasma ( ionized atomic gas ) surrounding the Space…
Neptune: Big Blue Giant
This picture was taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989 - the only spacecraft ever to visit Neptune. Neptune will be the farthest planet from the Sun until 1999, when the…
Hale-Bopp: A Continuing Tail
Where is Hale-Bopp now? The Great Comet of 1997 , one of the largest and most active comets ever, is outbound about 400 million miles from the sun. Too faint for viewing without…
Viewing discoveries from 15 March 1998 through 20 February 1998.