Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Planetary Nebula PK 164 +31.1
Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The bubble of expanding gas pictured above is the planetary nebula PK 164 +31.1, the remnants of the atmosphere of a Sun-like…
The Red Spider Planetary Nebula
Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and…
Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
This moon is doomed. Mars , the red planet named for the Roman god of war , has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos , whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic .…
A Halo for NGC 6164
Beautiful emission nebula NGC 6164 was created by a rare, hot, luminous O-type star, some 40 times as massive as the Sun. Seen at the center of the cosmic cloud, the star is a…
Reflection Nebula vdB1
Every book has a first page and every catalog a first entry. And so this lovely blue cosmic cloud begins the van den Bergh Catalog (vdB) of stars surrounded by reflection nebulae.…
The Medusa Nebula
Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500…
NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda
The large stellar association cataloged as NGC 206 is nestled within the dusty arms of neighboring spiral galaxy Andromeda (M31), 2.5 million light-years distant. Seen near the…
Mammatus Clouds Over Saskatchewan
Normal cloud bottoms are flat . This is because moist warm air that rises and cools will condense into water droplets at a specific temperature, which usually corresponds to a…
A Space Shuttle on the Streets of Los Angeles
Was that the space shuttle that just went by? Garnering attention that could make even a movie star blush, thousands of people watched in awe as a quintessential icon of the space…
The Horsehead Nebula
One of the most identifiable nebulae in the sky, the Horsehead Nebula in Orion , is part of a large, dark, molecular cloud . Also known as Barnard 33, the unusual shape was first…
Zodiacal Light and Milky Way
Ghostly apparitions of two fundamental planes in planet Earth's sky span this October all-sky view. The scene was captured from a lakeside campsite under dark skies in northern…
Merging NGC 2623
NGC 2623 is really two galaxies that are becoming one. Seen to be in the final stages of a titanic galaxy merger , the pair lies some 300 million light-years distant toward the…
A View from Next Door
Located just next door , Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Sun. A view from our interstellar neighbor a mere 4.3 light-years away is shown in this illustration. The…
Aurora Over White Dome Geyser
Sometimes both heaven and Earth erupt. Colorful aurorae erupted unexpectedly earlier this month, with green aurora appearing near the horizon and brilliant bands of red aurora…
A Spiral Nebula Surrounding Star R Sculptoris
What's happening around that star? An unusual spiral structure has been discovered around the Milky Way star R Sculptoris , a red giant star located about 1,500 light years away…
Black Sun and Inverted Starfield
Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar? If so, that might be because it is our Sun. In the above image, a detailed solar view was captured originally in a very specific…
The Hubble Extreme Deep Field
What did the first galaxies look like? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope has just finished taking the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest image of the…
Galaxies, Stars, and Dust
Spiky stars and spooky shapes abound in this deep cosmic skyscape . Its well-composed field of view covers about 2 Full Moons on the sky toward the constellation Pegasus . Of…
Pan-STARRS and Nebulae
A single field from the world's most powerful survey instrument captures this spectacular skyview. Looking toward Sagittarius, the scene spans nearly 3 degrees or six times the…
Aurorae over Planet Earth
North America at night is easy to recognize in this view of our fair planet from orbit, acquired by the Suomi-NPP satellite on October 8. The spectacular waves of visible light…
Nauset Light Star Trails
In myth, Atlas holds up the heavens, but in this scene they seem to pivot around a lighthouse beacon. Photographed with a camera fixed to a tripod, the well-planned image, a…
Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant
It's easy to get lost following the intricate filaments in this detailed mosaic image of faint supernova remnant Simeis 147 (S147). Also cataloged as Sh2-240, it covers nearly 3…
Spherical Planetary Nebula Abell 39
Ghostly in appearance, Abell 39 is a remarkably simple, spherical nebula about five light-years across. Well within our own Milky Way galaxy, the cosmic sphere is roughly 7,000…
The Same Color Illusion
Are square A and B the same color? They are! To verify this, either run your cursor over the image or click here to see them connected. The above illusion , called the same color…
Viewing discoveries from 30 October 2012 through 7 October 2012.