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.
Wide Angle: The Cat's Paw Nebula
Nebulae are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble . Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw…
Saturn's Moons Dione and Titan from Cassini
What would it be like to see a sky with many moons? Such is the sky above Saturn . When appearing close to each other, moons will show a similar phase . A view with two of the…
Ash and Lightning Above an Icelandic Volcano
Why did the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash? Although the large ash plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly noticeable…
Large Eruptive Prominence Imaged by STEREO
What's happened to our Sun? Last week, it produced one of the largest eruptive prominences ever seen. Pictured above , the prominence erupted in only a few hours and was captured…
Damage to Apollo 13
After an oxygen tank exploded and crippled their service module, the Apollo 13 astronauts were forced to abandon plans to make the third manned lunar landing . The extent of the…
Bright Points on the Quiet Sun
Up close, the solar surface is a striking patch work of granules in this very high resolution picture of the quiet Sun . Caused by convection, the granules are hot, rising columns…
NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy
Spiral galaxy NGC 4651 is a mere 35 million light-years distant, toward the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices . About 50 thousand light-years across, this galaxy is seen…
A Large Space Station Over Earth
The International Space Station is the largest object ever constructed by humans in space. The station perimeter now extends over roughly the area of a football field , although…
Unusual Spiral Galaxy M66 from Hubble
Why isn't spiral galaxy M66 symmetric? Usually density waves of gas, dust, and newly formed stars circle a spiral galaxy 's center and create a nearly symmetric galaxy . The…
Mercury and Venus Over Paris
Go outside tonight and see one of the more interesting planetary conjunctions of recent years. Just after sunset , the planets Mercury and Venus are visible quite near each other.…
IC 418: The Spirograph Nebula
What is creating the strange texture of IC 418? Dubbed the Spirograph Nebula for its resemblance to drawings from a cyclical drawing tool , planetary nebula IC 418 shows patterns…
Spitzer's Orion
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula , an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning about 40 light-years across the region, this new…
Discovery's Dawn
On April 5, visitors to Kennedy Space Center saw these colorful clouds, twisting and drifting through dawn skies. Of course, the clouds were rocket engine plumes from the predawn…
Discovery's Cloud
The space shuttle orbiter Discovery is now docked with the International Space Station , some 350 kilometers above planet Earth . Last Monday, its launch to orbit was a beautiful…
Venus and Mercury in the West
In this twilight skyview, a windmill stands in silent witness to a lovely pairing of planets in the west. The picture was recorded on April 5 from Gallegos del Campo, Zamora,…
A Fox Fur, a Unicorn, and a Christmas Tree
What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox, and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn ( Monoceros ). Pictured…
Prometheus Remastered
What does Saturn's shepherd moon Prometheus really look like? The raw images from the robotic Cassini spacecraft's January flyby of the small moon showed tantalizing clues on…
The Belt of Venus over the Valley of the Moon
Although you've surely seen it, you might not have noticed it. During a cloudless twilight , just before sunrise or after sunset , part of the atmosphere above the horizon appears…
NGC 602 and Beyond
Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud , a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal…
Serene Paraselene
Nestled in the Austrian Alps, frozen Lake Ossiach stretches across the foreground of this serene view. Recorded on March 1, the night sky includes a nearly full Moon and bright…
Evidence Mounts for Water on the Moon
In 2009, space missions revealed tantalizing signs of water on or near the lunar surface, once thought of as a dry and desolate environment . But researchers are now offering this…
Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri
Featured in the sharp telescopic image, globular star cluster Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is some 15,000 light-years away and 150 light-years in diameter. Packed with about 10…
Unusual Starburst Galaxy NGC 1313
Why is this galaxy so discombobulated? Usually, galaxies this topsy-turvy result from a recent collision with a neighboring galaxy. Spiral galaxy NGC 1313 , however, appears to be…
Moonset Over Pleasant Bay
It was a sky for the imagination. In the early evening last week, the sky illuminating the unaided eye was perhaps even more illuminating to the mind's eye. The unaided eye saw…
Viewing discoveries from 21 April 2010 through 29 March 2010.