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.
Galaxy Wars: M81 Versus M82
In the left corner, wearing a red nucleus surrounded by blue spiral arms, is M81 . In the right corner, sporting light stars and dark dust lanes, is M82 . These two mammoth…
Rings Around Beta Pictoris
An unusual dust disk surrounds nearby star Beta Pictoris . Discovered in 1983, astronomers are still learning just how unusual this disk is. Recent images and computer simulations…
The W4 Chimney
A huge chimney venting hot clouds of gas out from the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy has recently been imaged in radio waves . The Canadian Galactic Plane Survey team used an array…
The Mysterious Rings of Supernova 1987A
What's causing those odd rings in supernova 1987A? In 1987, the brightest supernova in recent history occurred in the Large Magellanic Clouds . At the center of the picture is an…
NEAR to Asteroid Eros
On December 23, 1998 the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft flew by asteroid 433 Eros . The robotic spacecraft was intended to brake and orbit Eros, but an…
X-Ray Stars Of Orion
The stars of Orion shine brightly in northern winter skies where the constellation harbors the closest large stellar nursery, the Great Nebula of Orion , a mere 1500 light-years…
Colorful Clouds Of Carina
Tumultuous clouds of the Carina Nebula , 8000 light-years away, glow in planet Earth's southern sky . Striking and detailed, this close-up of a portion of the famous nebula is a…
Aeolian Mars
Mars' atmosphere is relatively thin, still when martian winds blow they weather and shape its surface . Like familiar aeolian features on Earth , this field of dunes within Mars'…
Abell 2218: A Galaxy Cluster Lens
Gravity can bend light. Almost all of the bright objects in this recently released Hubble Space Telescope image are galaxies in the cluster known as Abell 2218. The cluster is so…
Snowstorm on Planet Earth
Earth is an ocean planet . From low Earth orbit, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) instrument onboard NASA's SeaStar spacecraft globally maps ocean color,…
The Milky Way in Infrared
At night, from a dark location, part of the clear sky looks milky . This unusual swath of dim light is generally visible during any month and from any location. Until the…
Natural Saturn On The Cassini Cruise
What could you see approaching Saturn aboard an interplanetary cruise ship? Your view would likely resemble this subtly shaded image of the gorgeous ringed gas giant. Processed by…
Astronomy From An F-18
In an era of blossoming ground and space-based observatories, astronomers are also pushing the envelope with airborne instrumentation - successfully capturing an asteroid…
Spiral Galaxy In Centaurus
Centaurus , the Centaur, is one of the most striking constellations in the southern sky. The lovely Milky Way flows through this large constellation whose celestial wonders also…
A Lunar Eclipse Over Time
During last week's lunar eclipse , our Moon appeared to disappear. As the Earth moved between the Moon and the Sun, the Earth's shadow fell on the moon, making it quite dark . In…
A Lunar Eclipse in Three Exposures
Our Moon turned red last week. The reason was that during the night of January 20, a total lunar eclipse occurred. The above digitally superimposed photographs captured the Moon…
NGC 2392 from the Newly Fixed Hubble
In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered NGC 2392 . From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, just after being fixed , the…
A Message From Earth
What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The above message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of the Arecibo…
Magnetar In The Sky
Indicated on this infrared image of the galactic center region is the position of SGR 1900+14 - the strongest known magnet in the galaxy. SGR 1900+14 is believed to be a…
X For Andromeda
A big beautiful spiral galaxy 2 million light-years away, Andromeda (M31) has long been touted as an analog to the Milky Way, a distant mirror of our own galaxy. The popular 1960s…
X-Rays From The Galactic Center
Exploring quasars and active galaxies in the distant universe, astronomers have come to believe that most galaxies have massive black holes at their centers. Swirling stars and a…
A Big Black Hole Floats By
A black hole glides silently through space. Is there any way to know it's there? Until last week, all objects that might be black holes in our Galaxy were part of binary star…
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…
V4641 Sgr: The Closest Black Hole Candidate
An object many astronomers believe is a black hole has been found only 1500 light-years from Earth, making it the closest black hole candidate . Although dramatic explosions…
Viewing discoveries from 9 February 2000 through 17 January 2000.