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.
Tornado and Rainbow Over Kansas
The scene might have been considered serene if it weren't for the tornado . During 2004 in Kansas , storm chaser Eric Nguyen photographed this budding twister in a different light…
Castle and Meteor by Moonlight
Each August, as planet Earth swings through dust trailing along the orbit of periodic comet Swift-Tuttle , skygazers enjoy the Perseid Meteor Shower . As Earth moves through the…
NGC 7331 and Beyond
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way . About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus , NGC 7331 was…
The Snows of Paranal
Recorded last week, this dawn portrait of snowy mountain and starry sky captures a very rare scenario. The view does feature a pristine sky above the 2,600 meter high mountain…
The Summer Triangle Over Catalonia
Can you find the Summer Triangle? It's not hard to find this famous triangle of stars this time of year from northern locations. Just look straight up after sunset and find three…
Seasonal Dark Streaks on Mars
What is causing these dark streaks on Mars? A leading hypothesis is flowing -- but quickly evaporating -- water. The streaks , visible in dark brown near the image center, appear…
MyCn18: An Hourglass Planetary Nebula
The sands of time are running out for the central star of this hourglass-shaped planetary nebula . With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a…
Comet Garradd and Messier 15
Recorded on August 2, this telescopic composite image catches Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) in the same field of view as globular star cluster M15 . The celestial scene would have…
A Summer Night's Dream
Fix your digital camera to a tripod, start a long series of exposures, and you too can record star trails. The concentric arcs traced by the stars as planet Earth rotates on its…
A Dusty Iris Nebula
These clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus . Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and…
The Leo Triplet Galaxies from VST
This popular group is famous as the Leo Triplet - a gathering of three magnificent galaxies in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, these…
Asteroid Vesta Full Frame
Why is the northern half of asteroid Vesta more heavily cratered than the south? No one is yet sure. This unexpected mystery has come to light only in the past few weeks since the…
Shuttle Reentry Streak from Orbit
What's that strange bright streak? It is the last image ever of a space shuttle from orbit. A week and a half ago, after decoupling from the International Space Station , the…
Metal on the Plains of Mars
What has the Opportunity rover found on Mars? While traversing a vast empty plain in 2005 in Meridiani Planum , one of Earth's rolling robots on Mars found a surprise when…
A Tale of Two Hemispheres
A quest to find planet Earth's darkest night skies led to this intriguing panorama. In projection, the mosaic view sandwiches the horizons visible in all-sky images taken from the…
Gale Crater
This sharp view from the Thermal Emission Imaging System camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter is centered on 154 kilometer (96 mile) wide Gale crater, near the martian equator.…
NGC 6188 and NGC 6164
Fantastic shapes lurk in clouds of glowing hydrogen gas in NGC 6188. The emission nebula is found near the edge of a large molecular cloud, unseen at visible wavelengths, in the…
Introducing Comet Garradd
Another large snowball is falling toward the Sun. Comet Garradd was discovered two years ago by Gordon Garradd in Australia , and is currently visible through a small telescope at…
Galaxy NGC 474: Cosmic Blender
What's happening to galaxy NGC 474? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex and unexpected given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in…
Milky Way Over Abandoned Kilns
What's that below the Milky Way? Historic kilns . Built in the 1870s in rural Nevada , USA to process local wood into charcoal , the kilns were soon abandoned due to a town fire…
A Flight of Helios
An example of solar-powered flight, NASA's Helios aircraft flew almost one hundred years after the Wright brothers' historic flight on December 17, 1903. Pictured here at 3,000…
NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis
Magnificent island universe NGC 2403 stands within the boundaries of the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis . Some 10 million light-years distant and about 50,000…
Pluto's P4
Nix and Hydra were first introduced to human eyes in Hubble Space Telescope images from May 2005 , as Pluto's second and third known moons. Now Hubble images have revealed a…
Atlantis Farewell from Parkes
The Parkes 64 meter radio telescope is known for its contribution to human spaceflight, famously supplying television images from the Moon to denizens of planet Earth during…
Viewing discoveries from 14 August 2011 through 21 July 2011.