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.
Impact on Jupiter
In 1993, a strange string of comet pieces was discovered near the planet Jupiter . So unusual a sight, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) quickly became the object of much scientific…
N81: Starbirth in the SMC
A very young star cluster has been discovered in a neighboring galaxy. The stars found in this cluster, dubbed N81, are so young and massive that they furiously eject matter and…
Antares
Antares is a huge star. In a class called red supergiant , Antares is about 700 times the diameter of our own Sun , 15 times more massive, and 10,000 times brighter. Antares is…
Hawaii
Aloha! With the graceful arc of the Earth's limb in the background, the Hawaiian Island archipelago is visible in this stunning photo taken by the astronauts onboard the shuttle…
Alan B. Shepard Jr. 1923-1998
On another Friday (May 5, 1961), at the dawn of the space age , NASA controllers “lit the candle” and sent Alan B. Shepard Jr. arcing into space atop a Redstone rocket . The…
X-Ray Pulsar
This dramatic artist's vision shows a city-sized neutron star centered in a disk of hot plasma drawn from its enfeebled red companion star. Ravenously accreting material from the…
Dark Craters on Ganymede
Ganymede has craters within craters within craters . The old surface of the largest moon in the Solar System shows its age by the large amount of these impact features. The above…
Nearby Spiral M33
M33 is a prominent nearby spiral galaxy. Nicknamed the Triangulum , M33 is one of the larger members of the Local Group of Galaxies . Two massive spiral galaxies dominate the…
La Nina Watch
Goodbye El Niño . Hello La Niña ? Scientists are watching to see if an evolving pool of relatively cool water in the mid-Pacific Ocean will develop into a full “La Niña”. Over the…
Globular Cluster M3
This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before mankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed , and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited a…
Rockets and Robert Goddard
Robert H. Goddard , one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882. As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic…
Hyakutake: Stars Through A Comet's Tail
Comets are cosmic icebergs . They follow very elongated orbits which carry them from the frozen, remote outer reaches of the Solar System to close encounters with the Sun . Heated…
X-Ray Triple Jet
Recorded on July 7 , this animation using X-ray images of the Sun shows an amazing event - three nearly simultaneous jets connected with solar active regions. The two frames were…
Ghost Galaxy NGC 2915
How do you find a nearly invisible galaxy? Pictured above is the blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxy NGC 2915 . In visible light, shown above in yellow, this galaxy appears to be a…
At Work on Mars
To learn about the history of Mars , just ask the rocks. Last year, that's exactly what the robot rover Sojourner did. Sojouner can be seen, above, analyzing a rock nicknamed Moe…
GRB 980703: A Reassuring Redshift
In the old days, just over a year ago, astronomers had little idea of the true distance to gamma-ray bursts . Did these enigmatic explosions occur in our outer Galaxy , or in the…
Asteroid Gaspra's Best Face
Asteroid 951 Gaspra is a huge rock tumbling in space. Gaspra became one of the best-studied asteroids in 1991 when the spacecraft Galileo flew by. In the above photograph , subtle…
M64: The Sleeping Beauty Galaxy
The Sleeping Beauty galaxy may appear peaceful at first sight but it is actually tossing and turning. In an unexpected twist, recent observations have shown that the center of…
NGC 1531/2: Interacting Galaxies
This dramatic image of an interacting pair of galaxies was made using the 1.5 meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile. NGC 1531 is the…
Hale-Bopp: The Crowd Pleaser Comet
In 1997, the bright comet Hale-Bopp may have become the most viewed comet in history -- visible even to casual skywatchers in light polluted cities around the globe . In this…
Mysterious Pluto and Charon
Pluto is the only planet in our Solar System remaining unphotographed by a passing spacecraft. Distant Pluto and its moon Charon therefore remain somewhat mysterious. In addition…
M8: The Lagoon Nebula
The bright Lagoon Nebula is home to a diverse array of astronomical objects. Particularly interesting sources include a bright open cluster of stars and several energetic…
Sizzling Io
What's cooking on Io ? This active moon of Jupiter is marked with volcanoes spewing lava that is now known to be hotter than any lava on Earth . Above is the highest resolution…
Apollo 15's Home on the Moon
Could you ever call this place home? The lunar module shown above, named “Falcon,” served as home for Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin during their stay on the…
Viewing discoveries from 28 July 1998 through 5 July 1998.