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.
Moon and Planets in the Morning
Last Friday, a gathering of three bright planets and the Moon graced the morning sky . With Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and a narrow lunar crescent close to the eastern horizon in the…
Martian Dust Devil Trails
Who's been marking up Mars? This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails…
A Solar Prominence Erupts in STEREO
What does a solar prominence look like in three dimensions? To help find out, NASA launch ed the STEREO satellites to keep a steady eye on the Sun from two different vantage…
Nereus Crater on Mars
It was along the way. The robotic rover Opportunity currently rolling across the Meridiani Plain on Mars has a destination of Endeavour Crater , a large crater over 20 kilometers…
The Star Pillars of Sharpless 171
Towering pillars of cold gas and dark dust adorn the center star forming region of Sharpless 171. An open cluster of stars is forming there from the gas in cold molecular clouds .…
Bright Nebulae of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of bright emission nebulae. In fact, narrow-band and broad-band image data are combined in this beautifully…
Herschel Views the Milky Way
With a 3.5 meter diameter mirror, larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, Herschel is ESA's new infrared observatory . The space-based telescope is named for German-born British…
Fireball Meteor Over Groningen
The brilliant fireball meteor captured in this snapshot was a startling visitor to Tuesday evening's twilight skies over the city of Groningen. In fact, sightings of the meteor ,…
Pleiades and Stardust
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted…
Giant Dust Ring Discovered Around Saturn
What has created a large dust ring around Saturn? At over 200 times the radius of Saturn and over 50 times the radius of Saturn's expansive E ring , the newly discovered dust ring…
Stars Over Easter Island
Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there. The Easter Island statues , stand, on the average, over…
Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh
The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style…
LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash
This mid-infrared image was taken in the last minutes of the LCROSS flight mission to the Moon. The small white spot (enlarged in the insets) seen within the dark shadow of lunar…
Starburst Galaxy IC 10
Lurking behind dust and stars near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, IC 10 is a mere 2.3 million light-years distant. Its light dimmed by the intervening dust, the irregular…
Target Crater Cabeus
About 100 kilometers from the Moon's South Pole, 100 kilometer wide crater Cabeus is the target for two LCROSS mission spacecraft on course to impact the Moon tomorrow. The…
A Double Ringed Basin on Mercury
What caused the smooth floor inside the double ringed basin on Mercury? No one is sure. The unusual feature spans 160 kilometers and was imaged during the robotic MESSENGER…
The Lagoon Nebula from GigaGalaxy Zoom
The large majestic Lagoon Nebula is home for many young stars and hot gas. Spanning 100 light years across while lying only about 5000 light years distant, the Lagoon Nebulae is…
The International Space Station Over Earth
After undocking, the space shuttle Discovery crew got a memorable view of the developing International Space Station (ISS). Pictured orbiting high above Earth last month, numerous…
The Same Color Illusion
Are square A and B the same color? They are. Are too. To verify this, click here to see them connected. The above illusion , called the same color illusion , illustrates that…
Old Faith-Full Moon
Scheduled to illuminate the landscape throughout the night tomorrow, October's bright Full Moon will also be called the Harvest Moon. Traditionally, the Harvest Moon is the Full…
Comet and Orion
These colorful panels both feature a familiar astronomical sight: the stellar nursery known as the Great Orion Nebula . They also offer an intriguing and unfamiliar detail of the…
Carina Pillar and Jets
This cosmic pillar of gas and dust is nearly 2 light-years wide. The structure lies within one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions, the Carina Nebula , shining in…
Saturn at Equinox
How would Saturn look if its ring plane pointed right at the Sun? Before last month, nobody knew. Every 15 years, as seen from Earth, Saturn's rings point toward the Earth and…
Orion in Gas, Dust, and Stars
The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all imbedded in an extended patch of…
Viewing discoveries from 22 October 2009 through 29 September 2009.