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.
The Firework Nebula
Imaged by the WIYN Telescope, the Firework Nebula is the result of a type of stellar explosion called a nova. In a nova , a nuclear detonation on the surface of a compact white…
Mir Above
Photographed from the approaching Space Shuttle Endeavour , the Mir space station floats above the clouds of planet Earth. Mir's modular construction , bristling with solar panels…
X-ray Transit Of Mercury
This sequence of false color X-ray images captures a rare event - the passage or transit of planet Mercury in front of the Sun. Mercury's small disk is silhouetted against the…
NGC 1808: A Nearby Starburst Galaxy
NGC 1808 is a galaxy in turmoil. A barred spiral with marked similarities to our home Milky Way Galaxy , NGC 1808 is distinguished by a peculiar nucleus , an unusually warped disk…
The Universe Evolves
Scroll right and watch the universe evolve. Above is a computer simulation depicting the evolution of our entire universe. On the far left is a slice of the universe soon after…
Solar Magnetic Bananas
Is that our Sun ? The unusual banana -shaped loops shown above are actually part of a computer-generated snap-shot of our Sun's magnetic field . This animated frame was…
Comet Hale-Bopp Over Val Parola Pass
In 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It could be seen even over bright city lights. Out away from city lights, however, it put on quite a…
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…
A Planet For Gliese 876
Centered in this unremarkable, 1/4 degree wide patch of sky in the constellation Aquarius is the star Gliese 876. Gliese 876 is smaller than the Sun, only about 1/3 as massive,…
NGC 4650A: Strange Galaxy and Dark Matter
This strangely distorted galaxy of stars is cataloged as NGC 4650A. It lies about 165 million light-years away in the southern constellation Centaurus . The complex system seems…
Sparkling Star May Indicate Galactic Composition
If a star in this photograph twinkled slightly, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Astronomers with the MACHO Collaboration noticed one such twinkle just last week, and many…
A Slice Through an Artificial Universe
We live in the era of humanity when most of our Universe is being mapped . To help understand these maps , astronomers computationally estimate the appearance of several possible…
The Doomed Dust Disk of NGC 7052
What created the dust disk in the center of NGC 7052, and what keeps it spinning? Although the disk might appear as a relatively tame “hubcap in space” , the unusual center of…
Edwin Hubble Discovers the Universe
No person in history has had greater impact in determining the extent of our universe than Edwin Hubble . From proving that other galaxies existed to proving that galaxies move…
Pioneer 10: The First 6 Billion Miles
Q: What was made by humans and is 6.5 billion miles away? A: Pioneer 10 - and last year was the 25th anniversary of its launch . More than 9.5 light-hours distant, Pioneer 10 is…
Good Morning Mars
Looking down on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars on June 1, the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft's wide angle camera recorded this morning image of the red planet. Mars Global…
Cosmic Rays and Supernova Dust
Cosmic Rays are celestial high energy particles traveling at nearly the speed of light, which constantly bombard the Earth. Discovered during high altitude balloon flights in 1912…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Telescope
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will soon begin. Pictured above is the 2.5-meter telescope poised to create the most ambitious sky map in the history of astronomy. SDSS will…
An Active Region of the Sun
The Sun is a busy place. This false-color image depicts an active region near an edge of the Sun . Hot plasma is seen exploding off the Sun's photosphere and traveling along loops…
NGC 4314: A Nuclear Starburst Ring
Is this old galaxy up to new tricks? The barred spiral galaxy NGC 4314 is billions of years old, but its appearance has changed markedly over just the past few millions of years.…
Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images
What are those strange blue objects? Many are images of a single, unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. Cluster…
Henize 70: A SuperBubble In The LMC
Stars with tens of times the mass of the Sun profoundly affect their galactic environment. Churning and mixing the interstellar gas and dust clouds they leave their mark in the…
Orion Nebula: The 2MASS View
Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula . The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an…
SOHO's Twin Sungrazers
This four frame animation (courtesy D. Biesecker ) shows two comets arcing toward a fatal fiery encounter with the Sun. These discovery images were recorded by the LASCO…
Viewing discoveries from 4 July 1998 through 11 June 1998.