Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Rhea: Saturn's Second Largest Moon
Rhea is the second largest moon of Saturn , behind Titan , and the largest without an atmosphere. It is composed mostly of water ice, but has a small rocky core. Rhea 's rotation…
Warped Spiral Galaxy ESO 510-13
How did spiral galaxy ESO 510-13 get bent out of shape? The disks of many spirals are thin and flat , but not solid. Spiral disks are loose conglomerations of billions of stars…
Sun, Moon, Hot Air Balloon
Anticipating the celestial shadow play of a solar eclipse, sky gazers across Germany watched the Sun rise on May 31. In Bonn , astrophotographer Thilo Kranz had set up his small…
Ring of Fire from Cape Wrath
If the Moon's apparent diameter is not quite large enough to cover the Sun during a solar eclipse , an annular eclipse can be the result -- a spectacle of silhouetted Moon…
Eclipse in the Mist
The Sun and Moon rose together over much of Europe on the morning of May 31st with the first solar eclipse of 2003 already in progress. And while sightings of the full annular…
The Milky Way Behind an Eclipsed Moon
What's behind the Moon? Each month, our Moon passes in front of -- and outshines -- many an interesting star field. Exceptions occur during a new Moon and during a total eclipse .…
The Fogs of Mars
Fogs of clouds and dust covered parts of southern Mars during last Martian winter . Giant volcanoes , such as Ascraeus Mons , the central circular feature near the top of the…
GRO J1655-40: Evidence for a Spinning Black Hole
In the center of a swirling whirlpool of hot gas is likely a beast that has never been seen directly: a black hole . Studies of the bright light emitted by the swirling gas…
NGC 1818: Pick A Star
This is NGC 1818 , a youthful, glittering cluster of 20,000 stars residing in the Large Magellanic Cloud , 180,000 light-years away. Pick a star. Any star. Astronomers might pick…
Ring of Fire Revisited
Early on Saturday , May 31 (UT) the new Moon will once again slide across the Sun's fiery disk, and once again an annular solar eclipse will be the result -- since the Moon's…
Frizion Illume
Scientific images of cosmic dust clouds or even frozen water can be esthetic too. In fact, this picture of thin layers of forming ice crystals uses a scientific understanding of…
SNR 0103-72.6: Oxygen Supply
A supernova explosion, a massive star's inevitable and spectacular demise , blasts back into space debris enriched in the heavy elements forged in its stellar core . Incorporated…
A Mercury Transit Sequence
Earlier this month, the planet Mercury crossed the face of the Sun , as seen from Earth . Because the plane of Mercury's orbit is not exactly coincident with the plane of Earth's…
The Earth and Moon from Mars
What does Earth look like from Mars ? The first image of Earth from the red planet was captured earlier this month by the camera onboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 253 Almost Sideways
NGC 253 is a normal spiral galaxy seen here almost sideways. It is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies , the nearest group to our own Local Group of Galaxies. NGC…
M74: The Perfect Spiral
If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 30 million light-years away toward the constellation…
Eclipsed Moon and Stars
Half-shadowed by the Earth, the Moon takes on a remarkable appearance against a field of stars in this intriguing telephoto picture recorded during a partial phase of last week's…
Eclipsed Moon Montage
After watching this month's lunar eclipse, amateur astronomer Sebastien Gauthier carefully composed this montage of telescopic images of the Moon sliding through planet Earth's…
Copper Moon, Golden Gate
When the Moon rose over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on May 15, both bridge and Moon were in already in Earth's shadow . Of course, the bridge is in the Earth's shadow…
A Primordial Quasar
What did the first quasars look like? The nearest quasars are now known to be supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies . Gas and dust that falls toward a quasar glows…
The Andromeda Deep Field
What can you learn from looking into the depths of space? In an effort to find out true ages of stars in neighboring Andromeda galaxy 's halo , astronomers stared into the galaxy…
The Holographic Principle
Is this image worth a thousand words? According to the Holographic Principle , the most information you can get from this image is about 3 x 1065 bits for a normal sized computer…
Dark Sky, Bright Sun
In low Earth orbit there is not enough atmosphere to diffuse and scatter sunlight, so shadows are black and the sky is dark - even when the Sun shines. The harsh lighting produced…
A Tale of Two Nebulae
This colorful telescopic view towards the northern constellation Lyra reveals dim outer regions around M57, popularly known as the Ring Nebula . While modern astronomers still…
Viewing discoveries from 8 June 2003 through 16 May 2003.