Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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A First Glimpse of the Great American Eclipse
Making landfall in Oregon, the Moon's dark umbral shadow toured the United States on August 21. Those gathered along its coast to coast path were witness to a total eclipse of the…
Lunar View, Solar Eclipse
Swinging around the lunar nearside on August 21, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter turned to look back on a bright, Full Earth. As anticipated its Narrow Angle Camera scanned this…
Panoramic Eclipse Composite with Star Trails
What was happening in the sky during last week's total solar eclipse? This featured little-planet , all-sky , double time-lapse, digitally-fused composite captured celestial…
Saturn in Blue and Gold
Why is Saturn partly blue? The featured picture of Saturn approximates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The image was taken in 2006 March by the…
A Fleeting Double Eclipse of the Sun
Last week, for a fraction of a second, the Sun was eclipsed twice. One week ago today, many people in North America were treated to a standard, single, partial solar eclipse .…
The Heart Nebula in Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur
What powers the Heart Nebula? The large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a heart . The nebula's glow -- as well as the shape of the gas and dust clouds -- is…
Diamond Ring in a Cloudy Sky
As the Moon's shadow swept across the US on August 21 , eclipse chasers in the narrow path of totality were treated to a diamond ring in the sky. At the beginning and end of…
The Eagle and The Swan
The Eagle Nebula and the Swan Nebula span this broad starscape , a telescopic view toward the Sagittarius spiral arm and the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Eagle, also known…
The Crown of the Sun
During a total solar eclipse , the Sun's extensive outer atmosphere, or corona, is an inspirational sight. Streamers and shimmering features visible to the eye span a brightness…
A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming
Will the sky be clear enough to see the eclipse? This question was on the minds of many people attempting to view yesterday's solar eclipse. The path of total darkness crossed the…
Milky Way over Chilean Volcanoes
Sometimes, the sky mimics the ground. Taken in 2017 May from the Atacama Desert in Chile , the foreground of the featured image encompasses the dipping edge of the caldera of an…
Total Solar Eclipse of 1979
From cold, clear skies over Riverton, Manitoba, Canada, planet Earth, the solar corona surrounds the silhouette of the New Moon in this telescopic snapshot of the total solar…
Perseids over the Pyrénées
This mountain and night skyscape stretches across the French Pyrenees National Park on August 12, near the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. The multi-exposure panoramic…
NGC 2442: Galaxy in Volans
Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish , (Piscis) Volans . Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms…
Perseid by the Sea
Just after moonrise on August 12 this grain of cosmic sand fell by the sea, its momentary flash part of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower . To create the Perseid meteors, dust…
Stars, Gas, and Dust Battle in the Carina Nebula
Chaos reigns in the Carina Nebula where massive stars form and die. Striking and detailed, this close-up of a portion of the famous nebula is a combination of light emitted by…
Detailed View of a Solar Eclipse Corona
Only in the fleeting darkness of a total solar eclipse is the light of the solar corona easily visible. Normally overwhelmed by the bright solar disk, the expansive corona , the…
A Total Solar Eclipse of Saros 145
A darkened sky holds bright planet Venus, the New Moon in silhouette, and the shimmering corona of the Sun in this image of a total solar eclipse. A composite of simultaneous…
Night of the Perseids
This weekend, meteors will rain down near the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. Normally bright and colorful, the Perseid shower meteors are produced by dust swept up by…
August's Lunar Eclipse
August's Full Moon is framed in this sharp, high dynamic range composition . Captured before sunrise on August 8 from Sydney, Australia, south is up and the curve of the Earth's…
Density Waves in Saturn's Rings from Cassini
What causes the patterns in Saturn's rings? The Cassini spacecraft , soon ending its 13 years orbiting Saturn , has sent back another spectacular image of Saturn's immense ring…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: The Inner Ring
Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have two? To begin, the bright band near NGC 1512 's center is a nuclear ring , a ring that surrounds the galaxy center…
Milky Way and Exploding Meteor
Next weekend the Perseid Meteor Shower reaches its maximum. Grains of icy rock will streak across the sky as they evaporate during entry into Earth's atmosphere . These grains…
Gravity's Grin
Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, published over 100 years ago, predicted the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. And that's what gives these distant galaxies such…
Viewing discoveries from 1 September 2017 through 5 August 2017.