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.
Water Discovered on the Moon
Water has been discovered on the surface of the Moon. No lakes have been found, but rather NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper aboard India's new Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter radios back…
To Fly Free in Space
At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was farther out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit…
Gigagalaxy Zoom: Milky Way
Our magnificent Milky Way Galaxy sprawls across this ambitious all-sky panorama . In fact, at 800 million pixels the full resolution mosaic strives to show all the stars the eye…
Gigagalaxy Zoom: Galactic Center
From Sagittarius to Scorpius , the central Milky Way is a truly beautiful part of planet Earth's night sky. The gorgeous region is captured here, an expansive gigapixel mosaic of…
Equinox Sunset
Often inspiring , or offering a moment for contemplation, a sunset is probably the most commonly photographed celestial event . But this uncommonly beautiful sunset picture was…
CoRoT Satellite Discovers Rocky Planet
How similar is exoplanet CoRoT-7b to Earth? The newly discovered extra-solar planet is the closest physical match yet, with a mass about five Earths and a radius of about 1.7…
Aurora Over Yellowknife
Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears. In this case, a picturesque lake lies in front of you, beautiful green auroras flap high above you,…
Abell 370: Galaxy Cluster Gravitational Lens
What is that strange arc? While imaging the cluster of galaxies Abell 370, astronomers had noted an unusual arc to the right of many cluster galaxies. Although curious, one…
Ganymede Enhanced
What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Ganymede , larger than even Mercury and Pluto , has a surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of…
NGC 3621: Far Beyond the Local Group
Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621 , some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra , the winding spiral arms of this…
Take My Hand
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this close-up of spacesuited NASA astronaut John Olivas outside the International Space Station . Carefully constructed from two…
Ultraviolet Andromeda
Taken by a telescope onboard NASA's Swift satellite , this stunning vista represents the highest resolution image ever made of the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31) - at ultraviolet…
The Tarantula Zone
The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter -- a giant star forming region within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). That cosmic arachnid…
NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula
NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble about 25 light-years across, blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. This beautiful portrait of the…
The Center of Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
What is left over after stars collide? To help answer this question, astronomers have been studying the center of the most massive ball of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy . In the…
The Holographic Principle
Is this picture worth a thousand words? According to the Holographic Principle , the most information you can get from this image is about 3 x 1065 bits for a normal sized…
Summer Night in Astronomy Town
This serene view records a late summer night sky over the rolling, green hills of planet Earth. It was taken near the rural village of Saadat Shahr, Fars province, in southern…
Stephan's Quintet
The first identified compact galaxy group, Stephan's Quintet is featured in this stunning image from the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. About 300 million light-years away,…
The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble
The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects , and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about…
Star Trails Over Oregon
As the Earth spins on its axis, the sky seems to rotate around us. This motion, called diurnal motion , produces the beautiful concentric trails traced by stars during time…
Unexpected Impact on Jupiter
Two months ago, something unexpected hit Jupiter. First discovered by an amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley on 2009 July 19, the impact was quickly confirmed and even imaged by the…
Jupiter Over the Mediterranean
This vacation included a sight to remember. Pictured above, a picturesque starscape capped a serene seascape as seen from Turkey this past August. In the above digitally stitched…
CMBR Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe
Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun . The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy . The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies . The…
Supernova Remnant E0102-72
The expanding debris cloud from the explosion of a massive star is captured in this multiwavelength composite , combining x-ray and optical images from the Chandra and Hubble…
Viewing discoveries from 28 September 2009 through 5 September 2009.