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.
Leonids from Leo
Is Leo leaking? Leo , the famous sky constellation visible on the left of the above all-sky photograph , appears to be the source of all the meteors seen in this year's Leonids…
Star-Forming Region RCW38
Star cluster RCW38 was hiding. This open cluster of stars is located about 5000 light years away towards the constellation of Vela . Looking there will not normally reveal most of…
CG4: A Ruptured Cometary Globule
The odd looking “creature” to the right of center in the above photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule . This globule, however, has ruptured. Cometary globules are…
Surveyor Hops
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from images returned by the US Surveyor 6 lander. Surveyor 6 was not the first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing…
Centaurus A: The Galaxy Deep Inside
Deep inside Centaurus A , the closest active galaxy to Earth, lies ... another galaxy! Cen A is a giant elliptical galaxy a mere 10 million light-years distant with a central…
Deep Space 1
Going gently into the night, Deep Space 1's ion drive has been running smoothly since it was restarted on November 24 . How powerful is this high-tech spacecraft's ion propulsion…
A Deep Field In The Southern Sky
This new deep view of the cosmos is the sequel to the 1995 hit Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field . Billed as the Hubble Deep Field South , it was produced by pointing the space…
Cepheus 1: Nearby Galaxy Hiding
Some galaxies are hard to find. Besides being hidden behind the dust and bright foreground stars of our Milky Way Galaxy , recently discovered Cepheus 1 was missed previously…
An Annotated Leonid
The 1998 Leonids Meteor Shower was perhaps the most photographed meteor event in history. Patient observers saw bright meteors streak across dark skies every few minutes,…
Arecibo: The Largest Telescope
The Arecibo radio telescope is currently the largest single-dish telescope in the world. First opening in 1963, this 305 meter (1000 foot) radio telescope resides in a natural…
A Lonely Neutron Star
How massive can a star get without imploding into a black hole? These limits are being tested by the discovery of a lone neutron star in space. Observations by the Hubble Space…
Twisting Meteor Train
Blazing through the sky at 70 kilometers per second, 100 kilometers or so above planet Earth, many bright Leonid meteors left behind a persistent, smoke-like trail of glowing,…
Meteor Milky Way
The bold, bright star patterns of Orion (right) are a familiar sight to even casual skygazers. But this gorgeous color photo also features a subtler spectacle - the faint stars of…
A Leonid Bolide Over Kansas
The 1998 Leonid Meteor Shower featured many bright events. Extremely bright meteors, known as bolides or fireballs , can briefly glow brighter than the full moon . Pictured above…
Seven Leonids Over Wise Observatory
More Leonids were visible at some places than others. In Israel, early in the morning of 17 November, it rained meteors though a clear sky. Observers there reported a peak rate…
A Leonid Meteor Explodes
Click on the above image and watch a Leonid meteor explode. The tremendous heat generated by the collision of a small sand-bit moving at 70 kilometers/second with the Earth's…
The High Energy Crab Nebula
This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula is so energetic that it glows in every kind of light known. Shown above are images of the Crab Nebula from…
Catching Falling Stardust
This carrot shaped track is actually little more than 5 hundredths of an inch long. It is the trail of a meteroid through the high-tech substance aerogel exposed to space by the…
Green Fireball
“Goodness, Gracious, Green Balls Of Fire!”, might have been an appropriate theme song title for the 1998 Leonid meteor shower . Many observers , like astrophotographer Steve Dunn…
Bright Leonids
Rich in bright and awesome fireballs , the Leonid Meteor Shower came early this year. In fact, judging from meteor watcher reports the peak came nearly 15 hours earlier than the…
Close-Up of the Bubble Nebula
It's the bubble versus the cloud. NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula , is being pushed out by the stellar wind of massive central star BD+602522. Next door, though, lives a giant…
NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula
What created this huge space bubble? A massive star that is not only bright and blue, but also emitting a fast stellar wind of ionized gas . The Bubble Nebula is actually the…
Leonids 1998: A Safe Meteor Storm
You're in no danger. During the meteor storm occurring tonight and tomorrow, thousands of bits of ice and rock will likely rain onto the Earth . Few, if any, will hit the ground .…
Deimos: A Small Martian Moon
Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos . Pictured above is Deimos , the smaller moon of Mars . In fact, Deimos is one of the smallest known moons in the Solar System measuring…
Viewing discoveries from 8 December 1998 through 15 November 1998.