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.
A Bulls-Eye Einstein Ring
Can one galaxy hide behind another? Not in the case of B1938+666 . Here the foreground galaxy acts like a huge gravitational lens , pulling the light from the background object…
NGC 3293: A Bright Young Open Cluster
Hot blue stars shine brightly in this beautiful, recently formed galactic or “open” star cluster. Open cluster NGC 3293 is located in the constellation Carina , lies at a distance…
Von Braun's Wheel
Orbiting 1,075 miles above the Earth, a 250 foot wide, inflated, reinforced nylon “wheel” was conceived in the early 1950s to function as a navigational aid, meteorological…
Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
Why is the Moon dusty ? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, the long history of micrometeorite bombardment has blasted away at…
Galaxies Away
This striking pair of galaxies is far, far away ... about 350 million light-years from Earth . Cataloged as AM0500-620 , the pair is located in the southern constellation Dorado .…
Planetary Nebula NGC 7027 in Infrared
NGC 7027 is one of the smallest known planetary nebulae . Even so, NGC 7027 is 14,000 times larger than the Earth-Sun distance . Planetary nebula are so named because the first…
A Baby Galaxy
What's the farthest galaxy known? The answer keeps changing as astronomers compete to find new galaxies which top the list. The new record holder is now the faint red smudge…
Starbirth in NGC 1808
The center of galaxy NGC 1808 is bursting with new stars, but why? Being a barred spiral galaxy makes NGC 1808 somewhat similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy . But the disk of NGC…
Sunspots: Magnetic Depressions
Our Sun has spots! These spots appear dark in photographs like the one above, but in fact sunspots are quite bright - they are just dark compared to the rest of the Sun. Sunspots…
The Gamma Ray Sky
What if you could “see” gamma rays? If you could, the sky would seem to be filled with a shimmering high-energy glow from the most exotic and mysterious objects in the Universe .…
Mars: Ridges Near The South Pole
No, it's not breakfast ... but looking down from an orbiting spacecraft , the odd intersecting ridges covering this area of Mars do present a waffle-like appearance. The cause of…
Mars: A Canyon's Edge
High resolution Mars Global Surveyor images were combined with Viking Orbiter color data to produce this stunning, detailed view of a Martian canyon's edge. The area pictured is…
Interstellar Dust-Bunnies of NGC 891
What is going on in NGC 891 ? This galaxy appeared previously to be very similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy : a spiral galaxy seen nearly edge-on . However, recent…
Clouds Over Tharsis on Mars
When and where do clouds form on Mars ? The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting Mars is finding out. Photographs released last week showed clouds forming above…
Asteroids in the Distance
Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 30 March 1998 through 7 March 1998.