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.
Descent Panorama of Saturn's Titan
You're the first spacecraft ever to descend to Titan -- what do you see? Immediately after the Huygen's probe pierced the cloud deck of Saturn 's moon Titan last January, it took…
NGC 2440: Cocoon of a New White Dwarf
Like a butterfly , a white dwarf star begins its life by casting off a cocoon that enclosed its former self. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a caterpillar and the…
Three Galaxies in Draco
This intriguing trio of galaxies is sometimes called the NGC 5985/Draco Group and so (quite reasonably) is located in the northern constellation Draco . From left to right are…
Jupiter and the Red Spots
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a swirling storm seen for over 300 years, since the beginning of telescopic observations. But in February 2006, planetary imager Christopher Go noticed…
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3: Fragment B
Periodic comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has fallen apart before. A cosmic souffle of ice and dust left over from the early solar system, this comet was seen to split into…
Saturn in Blue and Gold
Why is Saturn partly blue? The above picture of Saturn approximates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The above picture was taken in mid-March by…
Sunspot 875 Flares
An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the Sun. The region , numbered 875, is larger than the Earth and has produced several solar flare s over the past week. It…
Open Cluster NGC 290: A Stellar Jewel Box
Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. The…
1006 AD: Supernova in the Sky
A new star, likely the brightest supernova in recorded human history , appeared in planet Earth's sky about 1,000 years ago today, in 1006 AD. The expanding debris cloud from the…
Skylab Over Earth
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a Saturn V rocket in May 1973. Skylab , pictured above , was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes stayed as long as…
NGC 7635: Bubble in a Cosmic Sea
Seemingly adrift in a cosmic sea of stars and glowing gas, the delicate, floating apparition near the center (next to a blue tinted star) of this widefield view is cataloged as…
NGC 4696: Energy from a Black Hole
In many cosmic environments , when material falls toward a black hole energy is produced as some of the matter is blasted back out in jets . In fact, such black hole “engines”…
Crumbling Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Approaches
A crumbling comet will soon pass near the Earth. Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is brightening and may even be visible to the unaided eye when the fragmented comet zooms past…
M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind
What's lighting up the Cigar Galaxy? M82 , as this irregular galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81 . This doesn't fully explain the…
Star Clouds over Arizona
The clouds in the foreground are much different than the clouds in the background. In the foreground are a photogenic deck of Earth-based water clouds . The long exposure used to…
The Solar Spectrum
It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun , produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism -like…
Z is for Mars
This composite of images spaced about a week apart - from late July 2005 (bottom right) through February 2006 (top left) - traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars…
NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe
Shiny NGC 253 , sometimes called the Silver Dollar Galaxy, is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible - and also one of the dustiest. First swept up in 1783 by mathematician…
A Dust Cloud in NGC 281
Stars themselves can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular cloud s from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed…
Mars and the Star Clusters
This evening's skyscape includes a view similar to this one , recorded in western skies on April 16 - an orange-hued planet Mars wandering near rich open star cluster M35 . Also…
NGC 246 and the Dying Star
Appropriately nicknamed “the Skull Nebula”, planetary nebula NGC 246 really does surround a dying star some 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Cetus . Expelled over a…
Barnard's Loop around the Horsehead Nebula
Why is the Horsehead Nebula surrounded by a bubble? Although glowing like an emission nebula , the origin of the bubble , known as Barnard's Loop , is currently unknown.…
A Solar Prominence from SOHO
How can gas float above the Sun? Twisted magnetic fields arching from the solar surface can trap ionized gas, suspending it in huge looping structures. These majestic plasma…
Galaxy Wars: M81 versus M82
In this stunning cosmic vista , galaxy M81 is on the left surrounded by blue spiral arms. On the right marked by massive gas and dust clouds, is M82 . These two mammoth galaxies…
Viewing discoveries from 8 May 2006 through 15 April 2006.