Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Star Factory Messier 17
A nearby star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius . At that distance, this 1.5 degree wide field-of-view…
Tulip Nebula and Black Hole Cygnus X-1
When can you see a black hole, a tulip, and a swan all at once? At night -- if the timing is right, and if your telescope is pointed in the right direction . The complex and…
Gallery:
What if Saturn disappeared? Sometimes, it does. It doesn't really go away, though, it just disappears from view when our Moon moves in front . Such a Saturnian eclipse, more…
Perseid Meteors Over Inner Mongolia
Did you see it? One of the more common questions during a meteor shower occurs because the time it takes for a meteor to flash is similar to the time it takes for a head to turn.…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
Do underground oceans vent through canyons on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space,…
South Pacific Shadowset
The full Moon and Earth's shadow set together in this island skyscape. The alluring scene was captured Tuesday morning, August 20, from Fiji, South Pacific Ocean, planet Earth.…
Supernova Remnant CTA 1
There is a quiet pulsar at the heart of CTA 1. The supernova remnant was discovered as a source of emission at radio wavelengths by astronomers in 1960 and since identified as the…
The Dark Tower in Scorpius
In silhouette against a crowded star field along the tail of the arachnological constellation Scorpius , this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark…
Fermi's 12-year All-Sky Gamma-ray Map
Forget X-ray vision — imagine what you could see with gamma-ray vision! The featured all-sky map shows what the universe looks like to NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope .…
Supermoon Beyond the Temple of Poseidon
A supermoon occurred yesterday. And tonight's moon should also look impressive. Supermoons appear slightly larger and brighter than most full moons because they reach their full…
IC 5146: The Cocoon Nebula
Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146 , the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-year s wide. Soaring high in northern summer night…
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…
Sky Full of Arcs
On August 11 a Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched from a rotating planet. With a small satellite on board its mission was dubbed A Sky Full of SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radar…
Meteor Borealis
A single exposure made with a camera pointed almost due north on August 12 recorded this bright Perseid meteor in the night sky west of Halifax, Nova Scotia , Canada. The meteor's…
Late Night Vallentuna
Bright Mars and even brighter Jupiter are in close conjunction just above the pine trees in this post-midnight skyscape from Vallentuna , Sweden. Taken on August 12 during a…
Meteors and Aurora over Germany
This was an unusual night. For one thing, the night sky of August 11 and 12, earlier this week, occurred near the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower . Therefore, meteors…
Giant Jet from the International Space Station
What's that on the horizon? When circling the Earth on the International Space Station early last month , astronaut Matthew Dominick saw an unusual type of lightning just beyond…
Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge
What's happening in the sky above Stonehenge? A meteor shower: specifically, the Perseid meteor shower . A few nights ago, after the sky darkened , many images of meteors from…
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Animation: Perseid Meteor Shower
Where do Perseid meteors come from? Mostly small bits of stony grit, Perseid meteoroids were once expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle and continue to follow this comet's orbit as…
The Light, Dark, and Dusty Trifid
Messier 20 , popularly known as the Trifid Nebula, lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our…
A Perseid Below
Denizens of planet Earth typically watch meteor showers by looking up . But this remarkable view , captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by…
Periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle
A Halley-type comet with an orbital period of about 133 years, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is recognized as the parent of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. The comet's last visit to…
Milky Way Behind Three Merlons
To some, they look like battlements, here protecting us against the center of the Milky Way . The Three Merlon s, also called the Three Peaks of Lavaredo , stand tall today…
Storm Cloud Over Texas
What makes this storm cloud so colorful? First, the cloud itself is composed of millions of tiny droplets of water and ice. Its bottom is almost completely flat -- but this isn't…
Viewing discoveries from 29 August 2024 through 6 August 2024.