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.
Light Can Twist as Well as Spin
Light is more complicated than we thought. When astronomers measure light , they are usually concerned with its direction, energy, and spin polarization (sometimes). Recently,…
Leonids Over Indian Cove
One year ago today an impressive meteor shower graced the skies of Earth. Pictured above from last year, at least six bright meteors are visible in only part of the sky above…
Canis Major Dwarf: A New Closest Galaxy
What is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way? The new answer to this old question is the Canis Major dwarf galaxy . For many years astronomers thought the Large Magellan Cloud…
Leonids from Leo
Is Leo leaking? Leo , the famous sky constellation visible on the left of the above all-sky photograph , appears to be the source of all the meteors seen in 1998's Leonids Meteor…
LL Orionis: When Cosmic Winds Collide
This arcing, graceful structure is actually a bow shock about half a light-year across, created as the wind from young star LL Orionis collides with the Orion Nebula flow. Adrift…
Jupiter Portrait
Every day is a cloudy day on Jupiter , the Solar System's reigning gas giant. And swirling cloud tops are all you see in this stunningly detailed true color image, a portion of a…
Aurora Oklahoma
Nestled in the central US, the state of Oklahoma is noted for its gorgeous prairie skies and wide-open spaces, but not for frequent visitations of the northern lights . Still,…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 19 November 2003 through 27 October 2003.