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.
Mercury Astronauts and a Redstone
Space suited project Mercury astronauts John H. Glenn , Virgil I. Grissom , and Alan B. Shepard Jr. (left to right) are posing in front of a Redstone rocket in this vintage 1961…
M3: Half A Million Stars
This immense ball of half a million stars older than the sun lies 30,000 light-years above the plane of our Galaxy. Cataloged as M 3 (and NGC 5272), it is one of about 250…
The Incredible Expanding Cat's Eye
Watch closely. As this animation blinks between two Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC 6543 - the first from 1994 and the second from 1997 - the intricate filaments of this…
The Big Corona
Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun 's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is best. The human eye can adapt to see…
The Colorful Orion Nebula
The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye as a fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion , this image taken with the Big Throughput Camera shows…
Supernova Remnant N132D in X-Rays
Thousands of years after a star explodes, an expanding remnant may still glow brightly. Such is the case with N132D , a supernova remnant located in the neighboring Large…
Stonehenge: Ancient Monument to the Sun
Stonehenge consists of large carved stones assembled about 4000 years ago. Long before modern England was established, ancient inhabitants somehow moved 25 ton rocks nearly 20…
The Annotated Galactic Center
The sky toward the center of our Galaxy is filled with a wide variety of celestial wonders . Many are easily visible with binoculars. Constellations near the galactic center…
Cassini Images The Moon
On August 18, the Cassini spacecraft flew by the Earth and Moon , then continued on its way to the outer solar system. Near its closest approach to the Moon , a distance of about…
Comet Hale-Bopp Over the Superstition Mountains
Four years ago, Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered out near Jupiter falling toward the inner Solar System . Two years ago, it provided spectacular pictures as it neared its closest…
A Superior Conjunction Of Mercury
In astronomical parlance , an interior planet is at superior conjunction when it is located on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth. Mercury , the solar system's innermost…
Water Found in Space Rock
What would you do if it rained blue water from space? On 1998 March 22, no umbrella was needed, as the blue water came attached to a stony meteorite that landed in Monahans ,…
HCG 87: A Small Group of Galaxies
Sometimes galaxies form groups. For example, our own Milky Way Galaxy is part of the Local Group of Galaxies . Small, compact groups, like Hickson Compact Group 87 (HCG 87) shown…
The Universe Evolves
Scroll right and watch the universe evolve. Above is a computer simulation depicting the evolution of our entire universe. On the far left is a slice of the universe soon after…
The Water Vapor Channel
What alien planet's bizarre landscape lurks below these fiery-looking clouds? It's only Planet Earth , of course ... as seen on the Water Vapor Channel. Hourly, images like this…
Venus Falls Out of the Evening Sky
Orbiting closer to the Sun than planet Earth, bright Venus always appears to be near the Sun's position in our sky and often shines near the horizon in twilight hours . In fact,…
Eclipse Over The Mountain
Undaunted by world wide anticipation of the August 11 total solar eclipse, the moon also performed a lunar eclipse just two weeks earlier, on July 28 . Crossing the edge of…
1999 JM8: A Rock Too Close
Nearly four kilometers across, the huge rock known as 1999 JM8 silently passed only 8.5 million kilometers from the Earth in early August. The small asteroid was completely…
Symbiotic Star Bubbles
The two stars at the center of this nebula are very different. One is a white dwarf star with a mass similar to our Sun but with a radius as small as our Earth . The other star is…
Looking Back on an Eclipsed Earth
Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers…
The Witch Head Nebula
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble ... Maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula . This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is…
X-Ray Pleiades
The Pleiades star cluster is one of the jewels of the northern sky . To the unaided eye it appears as an alluring group of stars in the constellation Taurus , while telescopic…
Chandra's First Light: Cassiopeia A
Cosmic wreckage from the detonation of a massive star is the subject of this official first image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory . The supernova remnant, known as…
Cassini Flyby
Connect the dots and you'll trace the path of the Cassini spacecraft as it took a final turn by Earth on its way to the outer solar system. The dots (in a horizontal row just…
Viewing discoveries from 18 September 1999 through 26 August 1999.