Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Moonset from Taiwan
It took three worlds to create this simple image. The first world was the Earth , which was quite prominent. The dividing line running horizontally below the middle separates sea…
Perseid Meteors Over Ontario
Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Perseus. That is why the meteor shower that peaked over…
Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
Are asteroids dangerous? Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any given year is low. Because some past mass extinction event s have been…
M74: The Perfect Spiral
If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation…
Perseids over Meteora
The two bright meteors flashing through this night skyscape from August 7 are part of the ongoing Perseid meteor shower . In the direction indicated by both colorful streaks, the…
Perseid over Albrechtsberg Castle
Medieval Albrechtsberg castle is nestled in trees near the northern bank of the river Pielach and the town of Melk, Austria . In clearing night skies on August 12, 2012 it stood…
NGC 3370: A Sharper View
Similar in size and grand design to our own Milky Way , spiral galaxy NGC 3370 lies about 100 million light-years away toward the constellation Leo. Recorded here in exquisite…
Meteors and Aurorae over Iceland
What's going on behind that mountain? Quite a bit. First of all, the mountain itself, named Kirkjufell , is quite old and located in western Iceland near the town of Grundarfjrur…
In the Vicinity of the Cone Nebula
Strange shapes and textures can be found in neighborhood of the Cone Nebula . The unusual shapes originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic…
Leaving Earth
What it would look like to leave planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by the MESSENGER spacecraft as it swung back past the Earth, eight years ago, on…
Io's Surface: Under Construction
Like the downtown area of your favorite city and any self-respecting web site ... Io's surface is constantly under construction . This moon of Jupiter holds the distinction of…
Twisting with NGC 3718
A careful look at this colorful cosmic snapshot reveals a surprising number of galaxies both near and far toward the constellation Ursa Major . The most striking is NGC 3718 , the…
Tropic of Cancer
This intriguing monument can be found in Taiwan between the cities of Hualian and Taitong. Split into two sides, it straddles a special circle of latitude on planet Earth, near…
Moon Over Andromeda
The Great Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda (aka M31), a mere 2.5 million light-years distant , is the closest large spiral to our own Milky Way. Andromeda is visible to the unaided eye…
130 Years of Earth Surface Temperatures
How has the surface temperature of Earth been changing? To help find out, Earth scientists collected temperature records from over 1000 weather stations around the globe since…
NGC 2392 from Hubble and Chandra
In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered the NGC 2392 . From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope…
Saturn, Titan, Rings, and Haze
This is not a solar eclipse . Pictured above is a busy vista of moons and rings taken at Saturn. The large circular object in the center of the image is Titan , the largest moon…
Hoag's Object: A Strange Ring Galaxy
Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Art Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object . On the outside is a ring dominated by…
Atacama's Cloudy Night
Storm clouds do sometimes come to Chile's Atacama desert, known as the driest place on Earth . These washed through the night sky just last month during the winter season,…
The Elephant's Trunk in IC 1396
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story , the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396 , in the high and far off…
The Beautiful Trifid
The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star…
A Year of Sky on Earth
Each panel shows one day. With 360 movie panels, the sky over (almost) an entire year is shown in time lapse format as recorded by a video camera on the roof of the Exploratorium…
Two Views of Earth
In a cross-Solar System interplanetary first, our Earth was photographed during the same day from both Mercury and Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just…
Earth and Moon from Saturn
You are here. Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here. Pictured above is the Earth-Moon system as captured by the Cassini mission orbiting…
Viewing discoveries from 14 August 2013 through 22 July 2013.