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.
Antennae Galaxies in Near-Infrared
What happens when galaxies collide ? One of the best studied examples of the jumble of star clusters, gas, and dust clouds produced by such a cosmic train wreck is the interacting…
Unusual Rocks in Death Valley
How did those big rocks end up on that strange terrain? One of the more unusual places here on Earth occurs inside Death Valley , California , USA . There a dried lakebed named…
The Snake Nebula from CFHT
What slithers overhead? The dark winding lanes visible in part of the constellation of Ophiuchus belong to the Snake Nebula . Also known as Barnard 72, the Snake Nebula is a…
NGC 2787: A Barred Lenticular Galaxy
Lenticular galaxies aren't supposed to be photogenic. Like spiral galaxies , they contain a disk , but like elliptical galaxies , they are usually short on dust , gas, and pretty…
NGC 2392 from Hubble
In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered NGC 2392 . From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope…
Vintage Gamma Rays
Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation . But these high energy photons penetrate and interact in normal materials and cannot be focused by lenses and…
Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow: Supernova Connection
What causes the mysterious gamma-ray bursts ? Indicated in this Hubble Space Telescope exposure of an otherwise unremarkable field in the constellation Crater , is the dwindling…
Ikeya-Zhang: Comet Over Colorado
Comet Ikeya-Zhang (“ee-KAY-uh JONG”) has become a most photogenic comet . This lovely early evening view of the comet in Rocky Mountain skies looks northwest over ridges and low…
NGC 4414: A Flocculent Spiral Galaxy
How much mass do flocculent spirals hide? The above true color image of flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope to help answer this question.…
Mysterious Black Water in Florida Bay
What is causing the water in Florida Bay to turn black? The mysterious black color could be seen as early as last December in images taken by the SeaWIFS instrument on board the…
Hubble Resolves Expiration Date For Green Cheese Moon
Using the new camera on the recently refitted Hubble Space Telescope , astronomers have been able to confirm that the Moon is made of green cheese . The telling clue was the…
The Mysterious Rings of Supernova 1987A
What's causing those odd rings in supernova 1987A? In 1987, the brightest supernova in recent history occurred in the Large Magellanic Clouds . At the center of the picture is an…
Venus Unveiled
The surface of Venus is perpetually covered by a veil of thick clouds and remains hidden from even the powerful telescopic eyes of earth-bound astronomers. But in the early 1990s,…
NGC 4631: The Whale Galaxy
NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy seen edge-on only 25 million light-years away towards the small northern constellation Canes Venatici . This galaxy's slightly distorted…
Centaurus Galaxy Cluster in X-Rays
The Centaurus Cluster is a swarm of hundreds of galaxies a mere 170 million light-years away. Like other immense galaxy clusters , the Centaurus Cluster is filled with gas at…
Looking Into an Io Volcano
What would it look like to peer into one of the volcanoes currently active on Jupiter 's moon Io ? The caldera of Tupan Patera, named after a Brazilian thunder god , reveals…
Comet Ikeya-Zhang Over Tenerife
Comet Ikeya-Zhang has become bright enough to stand out in the night sky. Discovered February 1 , the comet has now just rounded the Sun and has likely attained its peak…
An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
Is there a monster in IC 1396 ? Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula , parts of gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on foreboding forms,…
The Cat's Eye Nebula
Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals the Cat's Eye Nebula to be one of the most…
The Water Vapor Channel
What alien planet's bizarre landscape lurks below these fiery-looking clouds? It's only planet Earth , of course ... as seen on the Water Vapor Channel. Hourly, images like this…
Odyssey Over Mars
Scroll right and journey for 300 kilometers over Terra Sirenum in the cratered highlands of southern Mars . The infrared view , 32 kilometers wide, was recently recorded by the…
S is for Sun
Taken yesterday from the SOHO spacecraft, this false-color image shows the active Sun near the March Equinox , the beginning of Autumn in the south and Spring in the northern…
Aurora Over Antarctica
Looking out from the bottom of the world , strange and spectacular sights are sometimes observed. Such was the case during the long Antarctic night of 1998 , as awesome aurora…
Breaking Distant Light
In the distant universe, time appears to run slow. Since time-dilated light appears shifted toward the red end of the spectrum (redshifted), astronomers are able to use…
Viewing discoveries from 11 April 2002 through 19 March 2002.