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.
Full Throttle For Deep Space 1
At full throttle the Deep Space 1 spacecraft's innovative ion drive produces about 1/50th of a pound of thrust ... a force so great that it would just about hold up a piece of…
Where a Black Hole Roams
Black hole candidate XTE J1118+480 is known to roam the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy. This exotic system - thought to be a stellar mass black hole consuming matter from a…
X-Ray Stars in M15
Side by side, two x-ray stars greeted astronomers in this false-color Chandra Observatory x-ray image of a region near the core of globular star cluster M15 . The greeting was a…
SIRTF: Name This Satellite
NASA is preparing to launch its next Great Observatory in 2002, but it does not yet have a proper name. Can you help? Currently referred to only as the Space Infrared Telescope…
Surrounded by Mars
Just after landing on Mars in 1997, the robotic Mars Pathfinder main station took a quick first look around. This insurance panorama was taken even before the Sagan Memorial…
Southwest Andromeda
This new image composite of the southwest region of M31 from the Subaru Telescope shows many stars, nebulae, and star clusters never before resolved. An older population of stars…
Venus' Once Molten Surface
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 spacecraft .…
Eclipsed Moon in Infrared
The total lunar eclipse of September 1996 disappointed many observers in North America who were cursed with cloudy skies. However, the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite…
Cold Dust in the Eagle Nebula
Stars are born in M16's Eagle Nebula , a stellar nursery 7,000 light-years from Earth toward the constellation Serpens . The striking nebula's star forming pillars of gas and dust…
X-Rays and the Circinus Pulsar
A bizarre stellar corpse 19,000 light-years from Earth, pulsar PSR B1509-58 beckons from the small southern constellation of Circinus . Like its cousin at the heart of the Crab…
Zodiacal Light and the False Dawn
An unusual triangle of light will be particularly bright near the eastern horizon before sunrise during the next two months for observers in Earth's northern hemisphere. Once…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 3310 Across the Visible
The party is still going on in spiral galaxy NGC 3310. Roughly 100 million years ago, NGC 3310 likely collided with a smaller galaxy causing the large spiral galaxy to light up…
Galactic Center Flicker Indicates Black Hole
Why would the center of our Galaxy flicker? Many astronomers believe the only credible answer involves a black hole . During observations of Sagittarius A with the orbiting…
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…
Moon Occults Saturn
On September 18, 1997, many stargazers in the U. S. were able to watch a lovely early morning lunar occultation as a bright Moon passed in front of Saturn. Using a 1.2 meter…
Moon AND Sun
Today's composite image was made from 22 separate pictures of the Moon and Sun all taken from Chisamba, Zambia during the total phase of the 2001 June 21 solar eclipse . The…
Moon AND Stars
Here's something you don't see too often ... a detailed picture of the full Moon surrounded by a rich field of background stars. It's true that bright moonlight scattered by the…
3C175: Quasar Cannon
3C175 is not only a quasar, it is a galaxy-fueled particle cannon. Visible as the central dot is quasar 3C175, the active center of a galaxy so distant that the light we see from…
2dF Sees Waves of Galaxies
How are galaxies distributed in the universe? This question is of more than aesthetic interest because the answer likely holds clues to composition of the universe itself. The…
The Making of the Rotten Egg Nebula
Fast expanding gas clouds mark the end for a central star in the Rotten Egg Nebula . The once-normal star has run out of nuclear fuel , causing the central regions to contract…
Deimos: A Small Martian Moon
Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos . Pictured above is Deimos , the smaller moon of Mars. In fact, Deimos is one of the smallest known moons in the Solar System measuring…
Magnetars In The Sky
Indicated on this infrared image of the galactic center region are positions of candidate magnetars -- believed to be the strongest magnets in the galaxy. Classified by observers…
The Flight Of Helios
Solar-powered , remotely piloted, and flying at about 25 miles per hour, NASA's Helios aircraft , is pictured above at 10,000 feet in skies northwest of Kauai, Hawaii on August…
How Big Is 2001 KX76?
Newly discovered minor planet 2001 KX76 is circled in the top panel above, a recent composite image from the European Southern Observatory's 2.2 meter telescope at La Silla, Chile…
Viewing discoveries from 22 September 2001 through 30 August 2001.