Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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A Triangular Shadow of a Large Volcano
Why does the shadow of this volcano look like a triangle? The Mount Teide volcano itself does not have the strictly pyramidal shape that its geometric shadow might suggest. The…
On the Beach with Mars
At the end of last year's northern summer, after its dazzling opposition, Mars still shone brightly in the night. The celestial beacon easily attracted the attention of these two…
The Planet and the Pipe
Now posing against our galaxy's rich starfields and nebulae, brilliant planet Jupiter shines in the night sky . Its almost overwhelming glow is near the top of the frame in this…
Messier 63: The Sunflower Galaxy
A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is about 25 million light-years distant in the loyal constellation Canes Venatici . Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic…
The Interstellar Clouds of Orion
The constellation of Orion is much more than three stars in a row. It is a direction in space that is rich with impressive nebulas. To better appreciate this well-known swath of…
SEIS: Listening for Marsquakes
If you put your ear to Mars, what would you hear? To find out, and to explore the unknown interior of Mars , NASA's Insight Lander deployed SEIS late last year, a sensitive…
Stephan's Quintet from Hubble
When did these big galaxies first begin to dance? Really only four of the five of Stephan's Quintet are locked in a cosmic tango of repeated close encounters taking place some 300…
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A Live View from the International Space Station
If you were floating above the Earth right now, this is what you might see. In 2014, a robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule that delivered supplies to the Earth-orbiting International…
NICER at Night
A payload on board the International Space Station, the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) twists and turns to track cosmic sources of X-rays as the station orbits…
Lynds Dark Nebula 1251
Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula ( LDN ) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a…
Sunrise at Copernicus Crater
A prominent impact site anchored in the lunar Oceanus Procellarum, Copernicus crater is at the center of this telescopic portrait in light and shadow . Caught in stacked and…
M95: Spiral Galaxy with an Inner Ring
Why do some spiral galaxies have a ring around the center? First and foremost, M95 is one of the closer examples of a big and beautiful barred spiral galaxy . Visible in the…
Stars, Dust, and Gas near NGC 3572
Star formation can be colorful. This chromatic cosmic portrait features glowing gas and dark dust near some recently formed stars of NGC 3572 , a little-studied star cluster near…
A Volcano of Fire under a Milky Way of Stars
Sometimes it's hard to decide which is more impressive -- the land or the sky. On the land of the featured image , for example, the Volcano of Fire ( Volcn de Fuego ) is seen…
A Solar Prominence Eruption from SDO
One of the most spectacular solar sights is an erupting prominence. In 2011, NASA's Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressively large prominence…
Planet of the Tajinastes
What bizarre planet are these alien creatures from? It's only planet Earth , of course. The planet's home galaxy the Milky Way stretches across a dark sky in the panoramic,…
Boulders on Bennu
An abundance of boulders litters the surface asteroid 101955 Bennu in this dramatic close-up from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Taken on March 28 from a distance of just 3.4…
Moons Near Jupiter
On May 20, a nearly Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmed the moonlight, the single exposure reveals the familiar…
Primordial Contact Binary 2014 MU69
Primordial contact binary 2014 MU69 , also known as Ultima Thule, really is very red. In fact, it's the reddest outer solar system object ever visited by a spacecraft from Earth.…
Deep Field: Nebulae of Sagittarius
These three bright nebulae are often featured on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way . In fact, 18th century…
Planets of the Solar System: Tilts and Spins
How does your favorite planet spin? Does it spin rapidly around a nearly vertical axis, or horizontally, or backwards? The featured video animates NASA images of all eight planets…
A Circumhorizontal Arc Over Ohio
Why would clouds appear to be different colors? The reason here is that ice crystals in distant cirrus clouds are acting like little floating prisms . Sometimes known as a fire…
Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan
Atlas , Daphnis , and Pan are small, inner, ring moons of Saturn. They are shown at the same scale in this montage of images by the Cassini spacecraft that made its grand final…
RS Puppis
Pulsating RS Puppis , the brightest star in the image center , is some ten times more massive than our Sun and on average 15,000 times more luminous. In fact, RS Pup is a Cepheid…
Viewing discoveries from 9 June 2019 through 17 May 2019.