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 Merope Reflection Nebula
Reflection nebulas reflect light from a nearby star. Many small carbon grains in the nebula reflect the light. The blue color typical of reflection nebula is caused by blue light…
Looking Back at an Eclipsed Earth
Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse . The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth . This shadow moved across the Earth at nearly 2000…
Globular Star Cluster M3
This immense ball of half a million stars older than the Sun lies over 30,000 light-years away. Cataloged as M3 (and NGC 5272 ), it is one of about 150 globular star clusters that…
Markarian's Eyes
Across the heart of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster lies a string of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain . Prominent in Markarian's Chain are these two interacting galaxies, NGC 4438…
Great Mountain Moonrise
On May 31st, a gorgeous Full Moon rose over Uludag Mountain in Bursa Province, Turkey. This alluring telephoto view of the twilight scene is a composite of images taken roughly…
Dust Sculptures in the Rosette Nebula
What creates the cosmic dust sculptures in the Rosette Nebula? Noted for the common beauty of its overall shape , parts of the Rosette Nebula , also known as NGC 2244, show beauty…
Jet Approaching a Crescent Moon
No natural clouds appear in this picture. On the left, an airplane cruises through the atmosphere leaving a contrail in its wake. The contrail would normally appear white, but the…
IC 4603: Reflection Nebula in Ophiuchius
Why does this starfield photograph resemble an impressionistic painting ? The effect is created not by digital trickery but by large amounts of interstellar dust . Dust, minute…
Shuttle Plume Shadow Points to Moon
Why would the shadow of a space shuttle launch plume point toward the Moon? In early 2001 during a launch of Atlantis , the Sun , Earth , Moon , and rocket were all properly…
3D Full Moon
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this satisfying stereo anaglyph of the Full Moon. A corresponding stereo image pair, intended for cross-eyed viewing , is also…
Messier 65
M65 is a big, beautiful spiral galaxy, the sixty-fifth object in the famous astronomical catalog compiled by 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier . It's also a member of a…
Dwarf Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
In visible light images, over a thousand galaxies are seen to lie within a volume about 20 million light-years across in the rich Coma Galaxy Cluster . But infrared images of the…
Liquid Sea on Saturn's Titan
What is this vast dark region on Titan? Quite possible a sea of liquid hydrocarbons . The region was imaged earlier this month when the robotic Cassini spacecraft swooped past…
Bright Spiral Galaxy M81 from Hubble
The Hubble Space Telescope has resolved individual stars in a spectacular new image of nearby spiral galaxy M81. The feat is similar to Edwin Hubble 's historic images with the…
A Hole in Mars
Black spots have been discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting…
The Horsehead Nebula
One of the most identifiable nebulae in the sky, the Horsehead Nebula in Orion , is part of a large, dark, molecular cloud . Also known as Barnard 33, the unusual shape was first…
The Moon's Saturn
On May 22nd, just days after sharing the western evening sky with Venus , the Moon moved on to Saturn - actually passing in front of the ringed planet when viewed in skies over…
Jupiter, Vesta, and the Milky Way
In this gorgeous skyscape, gas giant Jupiter along with the stars and cosmic dust clouds of the Milky Way hang over the southern horizon in the early morning hours as seen from…
The Tulip in the Swan
This expansive (1-degree wide) telescopic view looks out along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan . It is centered on a bright…
Venus Near the Moon
The two brightest objects in the night sky appeared to go right past each other last week. On the night of May 19, Earth's Moon and the planet Venus were visible in the same part…
Orange Sun Oozing
The Sun's surface keeps changing. Click the central arrow and watch how the Sun's surface oozes during a single hour. The Sun's photosphere has thousands of bumps called granules…
In the Center of Reflection Nebula NGC 1333
The dust is so thick in the center of NGC 1333 that you can hardly see the stars forming. Conversely, the very dust clouds that hide the stars also reflects their optical light ,…
A Spherule from the Earth's Moon
How did this spherule come to be on the Moon? When a meteorite strikes the Moon , the energy of the impact melts some of the splattering rock , a fraction of which might cool into…
Circum-axial Leaf Trails
Are photographs of star trails really evidence of the Earth's rotation about its axis? Yes they are, and science journalist Trudy E. Bell discovered that there is a simple way to…
Viewing discoveries from 11 June 2007 through 19 May 2007.