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.
Mars Then and Now
Does Mars have canals? A hot debate topic of the late 1800s, several prominent astronomers including Percival Lowell not only claimed to see an extensive system of long straight…
Eclipsed Moonlight from Connelly's Springs
Happily, skies over Connelly's Springs, North Carolina, USA were not mostly cloudy, as forecast, on the evening of November 8. In fact they were mostly clear early on, allowing…
An Intermediate Polar Binary System
How can two stars create such a strange and intricate structure? Most stars are members of multiple-star systems . Some stars are members of close binary systems where material…
Apollo 17 Lunarscape: A Magnificent Desolation
Buzz Aldrin , Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot and the second human to walk on the Moon , described the lunar landscape as “a magnificent desolation”. Dramatic pictures from the…
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…
November's Lunar Eclipse
The Moon slides through the Earth's shadow this Saturday night / Sunday morning (November 8/9) giving skygazers in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and western Asia a chance to enjoy…
Flare Well AR 10486
Almost out of view from our fair planet , rotating around the Sun's western edge, giant sunspot region AR 10486 lashed out with another intense solar flare followed by a large…
The Lynx Arc
While chasing the spectrum of a mysterious arc in a cluster of galaxies within the obscure northerly constellation Lynx , astronomers have stumbled upon the most massive and…
Aurora Over Edmonton
Northern and southern locales saw many a beautiful aurora over the last week, as particles from several large solar flares impacted the Earth. Many reported unusually red aurora…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 3982 Before Supernova
What do stars look like just before they explode? To find out, astronomers are taking detailed images of nearby galaxies now, before any supernova is visible. Hopefully, a star in…
A Giant Starspot on HD 12545
What could cause a star to have such a large spot ? Our Sun itself frequently has sunspots , relatively cool dark magnetic depressions that move across its surface. HD 12545 ,…
Halo of the Cat's Eye
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky . Its haunting symmetries are seen in the very central region of this stunning false-color…
A Dark and Stormy Night
It was a dark and stormy night . But on August 29th the red planet Mars, near its closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years, shone brightly in the sky against a background…
Aurora in Colorado Skies
Vivid auroral displays were triggered by a cloud of high energy particles and magnetic fields from the Sun that collided with planet Earth's magnetosphere yesterday, October 29,…
A Powerful Solar Flare
Yesterday , our Sun produced one of the most powerful solar flares in recorded history. Seen across the electromagnetic spectrum , the Sun briefly became over 100 times brighter…
The SDSS 3D Universe Map
The latest map of the cosmos again indicates that dark matter and dark energy dominate our universe. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is on its way to measuring the distances…
Large Sunspot Groups 10484 and 10486
Two unusually large sunspot groups are now crossing the face of the Sun . Each group, roughly the size of Jupiter , is unusual not only for its size but because it is appearing…
M16: Stars from Eagle's EGGs
Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image , taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of…
Islands in the Photosphere
Awash in a sea of plasma and anchored in magnetic fields , sunspots are planet-sized, dark islands in the solar photosphere , the bright surface of the Sun. Before the…
Mars Moons
This year's record close approach of Mars inspired many to enjoy telescopic views of the red planet. But while Mars was so bright it was hard to miss, spotting Mars' two…
Cygnus Nebulosities
Looking toward the constellation Cygnus , a stunning and complex region of nebulae strewn along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy is revealed in this unique wide-angle sky view.…
The Heart and Soul Nebulas
Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia ? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula ,…
The Belt of Venus over the Valley of the Moon
Although you've surely seen it, you might not have noticed it. During a cloudless twilight , just before sunrise or after sunset , part of the atmosphere above the horizon appears…
Neptune and Triton from Palomar
How's the weather on Neptune? Tracking major weather patterns on the Solar System 's outermost gas giant can help in the understanding of global weather patterns here on Earth .…
Viewing discoveries from 12 November 2003 through 20 October 2003.