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.
Bright Cliffs Across Saturn's Moon Dione
What causes the bright streaks on Dione? Recent images of this unusual moon by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn are helping to crack the mystery. Close inspection…
The Large Magellanic Cloud in Infrared
Where does dust collect in galaxies? To help find out, a team of researchers took the most detailed image ever of gas clouds and dust in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud…
Pluto in True Color
Pluto is mostly brown. The above picture captures the true colors of Pluto as well as the highest surface resolution so far recovered . Although no spacecraft has yet visited this…
Dusty Spiral M66
When morning twilight came to the Paranal Observatory in Chile, astronomers Mark Neeser and Peter Barthel interrupted their search for faint quasars , billions of light-years…
Gemini South Star Trails
Stars seem to arc through southern skies in this surrealistic time exposure -- recorded before moonrise from the Gemini South Observatory, Cerro Pachon, Chile, Planet Earth .…
Extra Galaxies
Careful inspection of the full field of view for this sharp composite image reveals a surprising number of galaxies both near and far toward the constellation Ursa Major . The…
A Backward Sunspot and the New Solar Cycle
Why is sunspot 905 backwards? Perhaps it is a key marker for the beginning of a new magnetic cycle on our Sun . Every 11 years, our Sun goes through a magnetic cycle , at the end…
Supernova Remnant E0102 from Hubble
It's the blue wisp near the bottom that's the remnant of a tremendous recent supernova explosion. The large pink structure looming to the upper right is part of N76, a large star…
Eight Planets and New Solar System Designations
How many planets are in the Solar System? This popular question now has a new formal answer according the International Astronomical Union (IAU): eight. Last week, the IAU voted…
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies some 70 million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus . This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the…
Apollo 17: VIP Site Anaglyph
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo scene from Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon! The color anaglyph features a detailed 3D view of Apollo 17's Lunar Rover in…
Blue Lagoon
Stars come and go as you slide your cursor over this engaging image of M8, aka the Lagoon Nebula . Of course, the nebula is itself a star-forming region , but the stars that…
The Matter of the Bullet Cluster
The matter in galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, fondly known as the “bullet cluster”, is shown in this composite image . A mere 3.4 billion light-years away, the bullet cluster's…
Sandy Gas Jets Hypothesized on Mars
What's causing seasonal dark spots on Mars? Every spring, strange dark spots appear near the Martian poles, and then vanish a few months later. These spots typically span 50…
A Smoke Angel from Airplane Flares
What type of cloud is that? It is not a naturally occurring one. Looking perhaps a bit like a gigantic owl monster, the cloud pictured above resulted from a series of flares…
Ceres: Asteroid or Planet?
Is Ceres an asteroid or a planet? Although a trivial designation to some, the recent suggestion by the Planet Definition Committee of the International Astronomical Union would…
A Map of Asteroid Vesta
Vesta is a huge rock 500 kilometers across that orbits out past Mars . In 1997, the above map of Vesta created using the Hubble Space Telescope was released showing a rugged…
Ceci n'est pas un Meteore
To paraphrase Magritte , “This is not a meteor”. It's not a picture of a meteor either, but it was taken during last weekend's peak of the Perseid Meteor shower. Skywatching with…
Spitzer's Orion
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula , an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. Also known as M42, the nebula is visible to the unaided…
Comet Dust over Colorado
The rock formation in the foreground of this night view was recorded on August 10, illuminated by light from a waning gibbous Moon. Even though the sky above also scatters the…
The North America and Pelican Nebulas
Here are some familiar shapes in unfamiliar locations. This emission nebula on the left is famous partly because it resembles Earth's continent of North America. To the right of…
IC 410 and NGC 1893
A faint, dusty rose of the northern sky, emission nebula IC 410 lies about 12,000 light-years away in the constellation Auriga . The cloud of glowing hydrogen gas is over 100…
Cosmic Rays
Have you ever been hit by a beam of high energy particles from above? Surely you have -- it happens all of the time. Showers of high energy particles occur when energetic cosmic…
The Comet and the Galaxy
The Moon almost ruined this photograph. During late March and early April 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp passed nearly in front of the Andromeda Galaxy . Here the Great Comet of 1997 and…
Viewing discoveries from 5 September 2006 through 13 August 2006.