Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 4945
Large spiral galaxy NGC 4945 is seen edge-on near the center of this cosmic galaxy portrait . In fact, NGC 4945 is almost the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy . Its own dusty…
The Cygnus Wall of Star Formation
The North America nebula on the sky can do what the North America continent on Earth cannot -- form stars. Specifically, in analogy to the Earth-confined continent, the bright…
Huygens: Titan Descent Movie
What would it look like to land on Saturn's moon Titan? The European Space Agency's Huygens probe set down on the Solar System's cloudiest moon in 2005, and a time-lapse video of…
The Antikythera Mechanism
What is it? It was found at the bottom of the sea aboard an ancient Greek ship. Its seeming complexity has prompted decades of study, although some of its functions remained…
Barnard Stares at NGC 2170
A gaze across a cosmic skyscape, this telescopic mosaic reveals the continuous beauty of things that are . The evocative scene spans some 6 degrees or 12 Full Moons in planet…
Stickney Crater
Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall . Asaph Hall discovered…
Cas A: Optical and X-ray
The aftermath of a cosmic cataclysm, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a comfortable 11,000 light-years away. Light from the Cas A supernova, the death explosion of a…
NGC 1309: Spiral Galaxy and Friends
A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River ( Eridanus ). NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years,…
A Solar Ballet
Sometimes, the Sun itself seems to dance. On just this past New Year's Eve, for example, NASA's Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressive prominence…
NGC 2170: Celestial Still Life
In this celestial still life composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines left of image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other…
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…
Ten Billion Earths
How common are Earth-sized planets? Quite common, according to extrapolations from new data taken by NASA's orbiting Kepler spacecraft . Current computer models are indicating…
The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies
How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster , named for the…
The Orion Bullets
Cosmic bullets pierce the outskirts of the Orion Nebula some 1500 light-years distant in this sharp infrared close-up . Blasted out by energetic massive star formation the…
The Elusive Jellyfish Nebula
Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught in this alluring telescopic view. Drifting near bright star Eta Geminorum, at the foot of a celestial twin , the…
Grand Spiral Galaxy NGC 7424
The grand , winding arms are almost mesmerizing in this face-on view of NGC 7424, a spiral galaxy with a prominent central bar . About 40 million light-years distant in the…
AE Aurigae and the Flaming Star Nebula
AE Aurigae is called the flaming star. The surrounding nebula IC 405 is named the Flaming Star Nebula and the region seems to harbor smoke, but there is no fire. Fire , typically…
The Dark Tower in Scorpius
In silhouette against a crowded star field toward the constellation Scorpius , this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower . In fact, clumps of dust…
Stereo Helene
Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Helene, small, icy moon of Saturn. Appropriately named, Helene is one of four known Trojan moons, so called because it orbits at a…
Sunrise at Tycho
Tycho crater's central peak complex casts a long, dark shadow near local sunrise in this spectacular lunarscape . The dramatic oblique view was recorded on June 10, 2011 by the…
Open Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158
Open clusters of stars can be near or far, young or old, and diffuse or compact. Found near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, they contain from 100 to 10,000 stars, all of which…
The Einstein Cross Gravitational Lens
Most galaxies have a single nucleus -- does this galaxy have four? The strange answer leads astronomers to conclude that the nucleus of the surrounding galaxy is not even visible…
A Double Star Cluster
Few star clusters are seen to be so close to each other. Some 7,000 light-years away, though, this pair of open or galactic star clusters is an easy binocular target, a lovely…
Saturn's Rings from the Dark Side
What do Saturn's rings look like from the dark side? From Earth, we usually see Saturn's rings from the same side of the ring plane that the Sun illuminates them -- one might call…
Viewing discoveries from 23 January 2013 through 31 December 2012.