Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Cerro Tololo Trails
Early one moonlit evening car lights left a wandering trail along the road to the Chilean Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory . Setting stars left the wandering trails in the…
Full Moon in Mountain Shadow
On October 15, standing near the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea and looking away from a gorgeous sunset produced this magnificent snapshot of a Full Moon rising within the volcanic…
The Tulip in the Swan
Framing a bright emission region this telescopic view looks out along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan . Popularly called the…
M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as dusty as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars…
The Antlia Cluster of Galaxies
Galaxies dot the sky in this impressively wide and deep image of the Antlia Cluster. The third closest cluster of galaxies to Earth after Virgo and Fornax , the Antlia cluster is…
An Atlas V Rocket Launches OSIRIS-REx
Have you ever seen a rocket launched into the Solar System? Last month a large Atlas V rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 41 in Florida carrying the OSIRIX-REx spacecraft.…
Cylindrical Mountains on Venus
What could cause a huge cylindrical mountain to rise from the surface of Venus? Such features that occur on Venus are known as coronas . Pictured here in the foreground is…
Gemini Observatory North
It does look like a flying saucer, but this technologically advanced structure is not here to deliver the wise extraterrestrial from the scifi classic movie The Day the Earth…
Herschel's Orion
This dramatic image peers within M42, the Orion Nebula, the closest large star-forming region. Using data at infrared wavelengths from the Herschel Space Observatory , the…
Galaxies from the Altiplano
The central bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy rises over the northern Chilean Atacama altiplano in this postcard from planet Earth. At an altitude of 4500 meters, the strange beauty…
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
Does this Moon look a little different to you? Although shown in spectacular detail, the full face of Earth's most familiar satellite appears slightly darker than usual, in…
The Cygnus Wall of Star Formation
Sometimes, stars form in walls -- bright walls of interstellar gas. In this vivid skyscape , stars are forming in the W-shaped ridge of emission known as the Cygnus Wall. Part of…
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The Winds of Earth
Which way is the wind blowing? The featured map can tell you this and much more, no matter your location on planet Earth. The dynamic map displays supercomputer forecasts drawn…
Hurricane Ivan from the Space Station
Ninety percent of the houses on Grenada were damaged by the destructive force of Hurricane Ivan . At its peak in 2004, Ivan was a Category 5 hurricane , the highest power category…
Moon, Mercury, and Twilight Radio
Sharing dawn's twilight with the Moon on September 29, Mercury was about as far from the Sun as it can wander, the innermost planet close to its maximum elongation in planet…
The Hydrogen Clouds of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum…
Trifid, Lagoon, and Mars
Bright nebulae and star clusters along this 5 degree wide field of view are popular stops on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the…
A Crumbling Layered Butte on Mars
What is this unusual mound on Mars? NASA's Curiosity rover rolling across Mars has come across a group of these mounds that NASA has labelled Murray Buttes . Pictured is a…
Nest of the Eagle Nebula
What surrounds the famous Eagle Nebula? The inside of the Eagle Nebula contains eggs -- evaporating gaseous globules -- that typically reside in tremendous pillars of gas and dust…
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Explore Rosetta's Comet
What would it be like to fly around a comet nucleus? To find out, just wait for your WebGL-compatible browser to load a detailed digital model of Comet 67P and then -- go…
Aurora Over White Dome Geyser
Sometimes both heaven and Earth erupt. Colorful aurorae erupted unexpectedly a few years ago, with green aurora appearing near the horizon and brilliant bands of red aurora…
Rosetta's Farewell
After closely following comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 786 days as it rounded the Sun, the Rosetta spacecraft's controlled impact with the comet's surface was confirmed by…
Lynds Dark Nebula 1251
Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula ( LDN ) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare…
Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is nestled within a natural basin in China's remote and mountainous southwestern Guizhou province. Nicknamed Tianyan, or…
Viewing discoveries from 22 October 2016 through 29 September 2016.