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.
AB Aurigae: How To Make Planets
This enhanced Hubble Space Telescope image shows in remarkable detail the inner portion of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star AB Aurigae. Knots of material, visible…
Orion on Film
Orion , the Hunter, is one of the most easily recognizable constellations in planet Earth's night sky . But Orion's stars and nebulae don't look quite as colorful to the eye as…
X-Rays from M83
Bright and beautiful spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years from Earth, toward the headstrong constellation Hydra . Sweeping spiral arms, prominent in visible…
Unusual Gullies and Channels on Mars
What could have formed these unusual channels? Inside Newton Basin on Mars , numerous narrow channels run from the top down to the floor. The above picture covers a region…
Wisps of the Veil Nebula
These wisps of gas are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. Many thousands of years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula , pictured above . At the…
Space Shuttle and Crew Lost During Re-Entry
Saturday morning, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry. Pictured above is the seven-member crew that was lost. True space pioneers , they were, left to right, David…
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68
Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud . Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular…
The Nebula And The Neutron Star
The lonely RX J1856.5-3754 was formed from the collapsed core of an exploding star. At a distance of 180 light-years it is the closest known neutron star. More massive than the…
Auroral Rocket Launch
In this striking image, a rocket climbs skyward toward an expansive green auroral display in the first launch of 2003 from the University of Alaska's Poker Flat Research Range .…
Comet Kudo-Fujikawa: Days in the Sun
Cruising through the inner Solar System, new Comet Kudo-Fujikawa reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, yesterday, January 29. Passing within 28.4 million kilometers…
Orion's Horsehead Nebula
The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the red emission nebula seen above and to the right of center in the…
The Lost World of Lake Vida
A lake hidden beneath 19 meters of ice and gravel has been found near the bottom of the world that might contain an ecosystem completely separate from our own. In a modern version…
BHR 71: Stars, Clouds, and Jets
What is happening to molecular cloud BHR 71? Quite possible, a binary star system is forming inside. Most stars in our Galaxy are part of binary star systems , but few have ever…
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…
Palomar 13's Last Stand
Globular star cluster Palomar 13 has roamed the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy for the last 12 billion years. The apparently sparse cluster of stars just left of center in this…
Seyfert's Sextet
Known as Seyfert's Sextet , this intriguing group of galaxies lies in the head portion of the split constellation Serpens . The sextet actually contains only four interacting…
Launch of the Sun Pillar
On January 16, NASA's space shuttle Columbia roared into blue morning skies above Kennedy Space Center on STS-107 , the first shuttle mission of 2003. But this is not a picture of…
M11: The Wild Duck Cluster
Many stars like our Sun were formed in open clusters . The above pictured open cluster, M11 , contains thousands of stars and is just over five thousand light years distant. The…
The Reflecting Dust Clouds of Orion
In the vast Orion Molecular Cloud complex, several bright blue nebulas are particularly apparent. Pictured above are two of the most prominent reflection nebulas - dust clouds lit…
Io at Sunset
How tall are mountains on Jupiter 's moon Io ? One way to find out is to view them at sunset . Tall structures facing the Sun are then better-lit and cast long shadows . The above…
Fullerenes as Miniature Cosmic Time Capsules
Scientists have found, unexpectedly, tiny time capsules from billions of years in the past. The discovery involves small molecules that can apparently become trapped during the…
Filaments in the Cygnus Loop
Subtle and delicate in appearance, these are filaments of shocked interstellar gas -- part of the expanding blast wave from a violent stellar explosion. Recorded in November 1997…
Stars and the Bubble Nebula
Seemingly adrift in a cosmic sea of stars and gas, this delicate, floating apparition is cataloged as NGC 7635 -- The Bubble Nebula . In this wide-angle view, the Bubble nebula…
NGC 1700: Elliptical Galaxy and Rotating Disk
In spiral galaxies, majestic winding arms of young stars and interstellar gas and dust rotate in a disk around a bulging galactic nucleus. Elliptical galaxies seem to be simpler,…
Viewing discoveries from 8 February 2003 through 16 January 2003.