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.
Planet Aurora
What bizarre alien planet is this? It's planet Earth of course, seen from the International Space Station through the shimmering glow of aurorae. About 400 kilometers (250 miles)…
M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
In 1716 , English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is…
The Multiwavelength Crab
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant ,…
UGC 1810: Wildly Interacting Galaxy from Hubble
What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Although details remain uncertain, it surely has to do with an ongoing battle with its smaller galactic neighbor. The featured galaxy is…
Big Dipper Above and Below Chilean Volcanoes
Do you see it? This common question frequently precedes the rediscovery of one of the most commonly recognized configurations of stars on the northern sky: the Big Dipper . This…
Ancient Ogunquit Beach on Mars
This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama , horizontally compressed , was taken by the robotic Curiosity rover currently exploring the red planet…
Star Formation in the Tadpole Nebula
What's all of the commotion in the Tadpole nebula? Star formation. Dusty emission in the Tadpole nebula, IC 410, lies about 12,000 light-years away in the northern constellation…
Galaxy Cluster Abell 370 and Beyond
Some 4 billion light-years away, massive galaxy cluster Abell 370 only appears to be dominated by two giant elliptical galaxies and infested with faint arcs in this sharp Hubble…
The Bull's Eye and the Young Moon
Aldebaran, eye of Taurus the Bull, and a young crescent Moon shared an early evening sky last Friday. The lovely celestial pairing could be enjoyed around planet Earth, but from…
The Perseus Cluster Waves
The cosmic swirl and slosh of giant waves in an enormous reservoir of glowing hot gas are traced in this enhanced X-ray image from the Chandra Observatory . The frame spans over 1…
NGC 3628: The Hamburger Galaxy
No, hamburgers are not this big. What is pictured is a sharp telescopic view of a magnificent edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628 , a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of…
Approach above Sunset
There it is! The Cygnus supply ship was a welcome sight to the astronauts on the International Space Station just over a week ago. Launched three days before on a United Launch…
Cooling Neutron Star
The bright source near the center is a neutron star, the incredibly dense, collapsed remains of a massive stellar core. Surrounding it is supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a…
Cassini Looks Out from Saturn
This is what Saturn looks like from inside the rings. Last week, for the first time , NASA directed the Cassini spacecraft to swoop between Saturn and its rings. During the dive ,…
Arches of Spring
Two luminous arches stretched across the dome of the sky on this northern spring night. After sunset on March 29, the mountain view panorama was captured in 57 exposures from…
Exploring the Antennae
Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus , two large galaxies are colliding . Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 , very…
Lyrids in Southern Skies
Earth's annual Lyrid meteor shower peaked before dawn on April 22nd, as our fair planet plowed through dust from the tail of long-period comet Thatcher . Seen from the high, dark,…
Mt. Etna Lava Plume
Mt. Etna has been erupting for hundreds of thousands of years. Located in Sicily , Italy , the volcano produces lava fountains over one kilometer high. Mt. Etna is not only one of…
A Split Ion Tail for Comet Lovejoy E4
What's happened to Comet Lovejoy? In the pictured image , a processed composite , the comet was captured early this month after brightening unexpectedly and sporting a long and…
A White Battle in the Black Sea
Trillions have died in the Earth's seas. Calcified shields of the dead already make up the white cliffs of Dover . The battle between ball-shaped light-colored single-celled…
The Holographic Principle
Is this picture worth a thousand words? According to the Holographic Principle , the most information you can get from this image is about 3 x 1065 bits for a normal sized…
Between the Rings
On April 12 , as the Sun was blocked by the disk of Saturn the Cassini spacecraft camera looked toward the inner Solar System and the gas giant's backlit rings . At the top of the…
NGC 4302 and NGC 4298
Seen edge-on , spiral galaxy NGC 4302 (left) lies about 55 million light-years away in the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. A member of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster ,…
Asteroid 2014 JO25
A day before its closest approach, asteroid 2014 JO25 was imaged by radar with the 70-meter antenna of NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. This grid…
Viewing discoveries from 13 May 2017 through 20 April 2017.