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.
The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies .…
Super-Earths May Circle Other Stars
Are “super-Earths” common around other star systems? Quite possibly. Unexpected evidence for this came to light recently when a planet orbiting a distant star gravitationally…
Our Busy Solar System
Our Solar System is a busy place. Although the major planets get the most press, a swarm of rocks, comets, and asteroids also exist. The above plot shows the placement of known…
Red Spot Jr.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a swirling storm seen for over 300 years, since the beginning of telescopic observations of the Solar System's ruling gas giant . But over the last…
The Big Dipper Cluster
A well-known asterism in northern skies, The Big Dipper is easy to recognize even when viewed upside down. Part of the larger constellation of Ursa Major , the bright dipper stars…
Eta and Keyhole in the Carina Nebula
South is toward the top in this colorful close-up view of the Great Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), famous star-forming region of the southern sky. Covering an area surrounding the…
McCool Hill on Mars
You can make it. Winter is rapidly advancing on the southern hemisphere on Mars , and the lack of sunlight could be dangerous unless you find a good place to hibernate . There it…
CG4: A Ruptured Cometary Globule
Can a gas cloud eat a galaxy? It's not even close. The odd looking “creature” in the center of the above photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule . This globule, however,…
Z Machine Sets Unexpected Earth Temperature Record
Why is this plasma so hot? Physicists aren't sure. What is known for sure is that the Z Machine running at Sandia National Laboratories created a plasma that was unexpectedly hot.…
Globular Cluster M3 from WIYN
This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before humankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed , and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited…
Colors of Comet Pojmanski
Comet Pojmanski flew by planet Earth last weekend on a surprise trip through the inner solar system. Then an easy binocular target for morning skygazers , Pojmanski ultimately…
Enceladus and the Search for Water
Based on data from Cassini spacecraft instruments, researchers are now arguing that liquid water reservoirs exist only tens of meters below the surface of Saturn's small (500…
Trio Leo
This popular group is famous as the Leo Triplet - a gathering of three magnificent galaxies in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, these…
Earth's Shrinking Antarctic Ice Sheet
Is the continent at the end of the Earth slowly melting? For millions of years, Antarctica , the frozen continent at the southern end of planet Earth, has been encased in a…
A Nearby Supernova in Spiral Galaxy M100
One of the nearer supernovas of recent years was discovered last month in the bright nearby galaxy M100 . The supernova, dubbed SN 2006X , is still near its maximum brightness and…
Unexpected Comet Pojmanski Now Visible
Have you ever seen a comet? Comets bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye appear only every few years . Right now, however, a new comet has brightened unexpectedly and is…
Colorful Light Pillars
How can an aurora appear so near the ground? Pictured above are not aurora but nearby light pillars , a local phenomenon that can appear as a distant one. In most places on Earth,…
The Galaxy Within Centaurus A
Peering deep inside Centaurus A, the closest active galaxy to Earth, the Spitzer Space Telescope's penetrating infrared cameras recorded this startling vista in February 2004.…
Venus and Comet Pojmanski
Shining brightly in the east at dawn, Venus dominates the sky in this view over a suburban landscape from Bursa, Turkey. An otherwise familiar scene for astronomer Tunc Tezel, his…
Messier 101
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this…
Multiverses: Do Other Universes Exist?
Do nearly exact copies of you exist in other universes? If one or more of the multiverse hypotheses is correct, then quite possibly they do. In the above computer-enhanced…
The Flaming Star Nebula from CFHT
Rippling dust and gas lanes give the Flaming Star Nebula its name. The red and purple colors of the nebula are present in different regions and are created by different processes.…
GRB 060218: A Mysterious Transient
What is it? Something is happening in a small portion of the sky toward the constellation of Aries . Telescopes around the globe are tracking an unusual transient there as it…
Inside the Eagle Nebula
From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle . A closer look at the Eagle Nebula , however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell…
Viewing discoveries from 21 March 2006 through 26 February 2006.