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 Universe Nearby
What does the universe nearby look like? This plot shows nearly 50,000 galaxies in the nearby universe detected by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) in infrared light . The…
Views from Cassini at Saturn
What has the Cassini orbiter seen since arriving at Saturn? The above music video shows some of the highlights. In the first time-lapse sequence (00:07), a vertical line appears…
M64: The Sleeping Beauty Galaxy
The Sleeping Beauty galaxy may appear peaceful at first sight but it is actually tossing and turning. In an unexpected twist, recent observations have shown that the gas in the…
Supernovae in the Whirlpool
Where do spiral galaxies keep their supernovae? Near their massive star forming regions, of course , and those regions tend to lie along sweeping blue spiral arms. Because massive…
The Sun Unleashed
On June 7, the Sun unleashed only a medium sized solar flare as rotation carried active regions of sunpots toward the solar limb. But that flare was followed by an astounding gush…
The Great Carina Nebula
A jewel of the southern sky , the Great Carina Nebula , also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. Like the smaller,…
Space Shuttle and Space Station Photographed Together
How was this picture taken? Usually, pictures of the shuttle, taken from space, are snapped from the space station. Commonly, pictures of the space station are snapped from the…
A Last Landing for Space Shuttle Endeavour
Space shuttle Endeavour is home to stay. In a rare night landing last week, Endeavour glided onto a runway in Cape Canaveral , Florida , USA completing a 16-day mission that…
Geometer's Playground Over Wyoming
If you travel several kilometers off a main highway through Wyoming, you may see an unusual sight. In particular, near Buford , Wyoming , USA, you could run across the geometric…
Another Nearby Supernova in the Whirlpool Galaxy
One of the brightest supernovas in recent years has just been recorded in the nearby Whirlpool galaxy (M51). Surprisingly, a seemingly similar supernova was recorded in M51 during…
Dawn's Grand Finale
After more than a month, the lovely lineup of four naked-eye planets in dawn skies is coming to a close. Still, on May 31st a slender Moon joined the grouping along the eastern…
Midnight's Solar Eclipse
On June 1, the shadow of the New Moon was cast across a land of the midnight Sun in this year's second partial solar eclipse . This picture of the geocentric celestial event above…
Endeavour's Starry Night
This luminous night view of the space shuttle orbiter Endeavour , docked with the International Space Station for a final time, was captured on May 28. Orbiting 350 kilometers…
Earth Rotating Under Very Large Telescopes
Why is the Earth moving in the above video? Most time lapse videos of the night sky show the stars and sky moving above a steady Earth. Here, however, the frames have been…
Jets from Unusual Galaxy Centaurus A
Jets of streaming plasma expelled by the central black hole of a massive spiral galaxy light up this composite image of Centaurus A . The jets emanating from Cen A are over a…
Last Panorama of the Spirit Rover on Mars
This is the last thing that the Spirit rover on Mars ever saw. Operating years beyond original expectations, Spirit eventually got mired in martian dirt and then ran out of power…
Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning
Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. In January 2007, people from Perth , Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far.…
The Mileage of Light
If you're driving down a dark road on a starry night, you might want to check the odometer. Earlier this month, when traveling astronomer Dennis Mammana did he was greeted with…
Messier Marathon
In this action scene , red night vision lights, green laser pointers, tripods and telescopes in faint silhouette surround intrepid sky gazers embarked on the 10th annual Iran…
Supernova Sonata
To create a sonata from supernovae, first you have to find the supernovae. To do that composers Alex Parker and Melissa Graham relied on the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)…
Space Shuttle Rising
What's that rising from the clouds? The space shuttle. If you looked out the window of an airplane at just the right place and time last week, you could have seen something very…
Three Arches Above Utah
How many arches can you count in the above image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah , USA , then two. But since the above image was…
An Unexpected Flare from the Crab Nebula
Why does the Crab Nebula flare? No one is sure. The unusual behavior, discovered over the past few years, seems only to occur in very high energy light -- gamma rays . As recently…
Io: The Prometheus Plume
What's happening on Jupiter's moon Io? Two sulfurous eruptions are visible on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io in this color composite image from the robotic Galileo spacecraft that…
Viewing discoveries from 14 June 2011 through 22 May 2011.