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.
Zodiacal Light
Sometimes the sky itself seems to glow. Usually, this means you are seeing a cloud reflecting sunlight or moonlight. If the glow appears as a faint band of light running across…
A Fisheye View of Comet Hale-Bopp
Thousands of stars, several constellations, a planet and a comet all graced the western horizon over Ujue, Spain just after sunset on April 4th, 1997. Because the picture was…
The Snake Nebula in Ophiuchus
What slithers there? The dark winding lanes visible in part of the constellation Ophiuchus belong to the Snake Nebula. The Snake Nebula is a series of dark absorption clouds made…
A Star Forming Region in the LMC
Stars sometimes form in colorful ways. Pictured above is a small region in the nearby LMC galaxy where stars are forming. After a star is born , it may do several things to…
IP Pegasi: Spiral Star
Spiral arms aren't just for galaxies . A hot disk of gas surrounding a compact white dwarf star in the constellation of Pegasus has recently been revealed to be imprinted with…
A Universe in a Box
Is this our universe? Possibly. It is one computerized guess of how gas in the universe was distributed billions of years ago, at redshift 3, when the universe was only a quarter…
Bright Meteor, Dark Sky
Has Orion the Hunter acquired a new weapon? If you turn your head sideways (counterclockwise) you might notice the familiar constellation of Orion , particularly the three…
Super Typhoon Winnie
Super Typhoon Winnie raged through parts of the Eastern Hemisphere last week. Swirling in the Pacific Ocean with winds in excess of 160 miler per hour, Winnie became one of the…
Io: The Prometheus Plume
Two sulfurous eruptions are visible on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io in this color composite Galileo image . On the left, over Io's limb, a new bluish plume rises about 86 miles…
Astro 1 In Orbit
In December of 1990, the Space Shuttle Columbia carried an array of astronomical telescopes high above the Earth's obscuring atmosphere to observe the Universe at ultraviolet and…
Pictured: An Ancient Martian?
Alien! Alien? Is this what an ancient Martian looked like? The tube-like form on the above highly magnified image is now believed by many to be a fossil of a simple Martian…
Impact On Europa
This bull's-eye pattern marks the impact of a mountain-sized comet or asteroid on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa . Recorded by the Galileo spacecraft in April of this…
Mars Rocks, Sojourner Rolls
This sharp color image featuring Mars rock Yogi and the rolling Sojourner robot shows off Yogi's startling two-toned surface. Yogi appears to be leaning into the prevailing winds…
Resolving Mira
Most stars appear only as points of light. Recently, Betelgeuse became the second star, after our Sun , to have it surface resolved. Now add Mira to the list. Mira A is a red…
Sher 25: A Pending Supernova?
No supernova has ever been predicted - yet. These dramatic stellar explosions that destroy stars, that create and disperse the elements that compose people and planets , that…
A Perseid Meteor
Tonight the Perseid Meteor Shower reaches its maximum. Grains of rocky ice will streak across the sky as they evaporate during entry into Earth's atmosphere . These ice chips were…
Nebulosity in Sagittarius
What causes the colors in this beautiful nebulosity in Sagittarius ? Dubbed NGC 6589 and NGC 6590, the colors of this nebulosity, are caused by gas and dust . The blue color of…
The Hydra Cluster of Galaxies
You are flying through space and come to ... the Hydra Cluster of Galaxies. Listed as Abell 1060, the Hydra Cluster contains well over 100 bright galaxies. Clusters of galaxies…
White Oval Clouds on Jupiter
What are those white ovals all over Jupiter? Storms! Jupiter 's clouds can swirl rapidly in raised high-pressure storm systems that circle the planet. The above pictured white…
Jupiter's Ring Halo
Why do small particles hover around Jupiter's rings? These particles form a previously unknown ring halo , recently discovered by the robot spacecraft Galileo currently orbiting…
Hale-Bopp from Indian Cove
Good cameras were able to obtain impressive photographs of Comet Hale-Bopp when at its brightest earlier this year. In the above photograph taken April 5th, Comet Hale-Bopp was…
M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy
Why do many galaxies appear as spirals ? A striking example is M101, shown above , whose relatively close distance of about 22 million light years allow it to be studied in some…
A Rusty Sunset on Mars
On Mars, sunsets can appear salmon pink. The unusual color is partly due to rust : oxidized iron from Martian dust circulating in the Martian atmosphere . Clouds appear in the…
The Cygnus Loop
15,000 years ago a star in the constellation of Cygnus exploded -- the shockwave from this supernova explosion is still expanding into interstellar space! The collision of this…
Viewing discoveries from 26 August 1997 through 3 August 1997.