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.
Solar Sail
Nearly 400 years ago astronomer Johannes Kepler observed comet tails blown by a solar breeze and suggested that vessels might likewise navigate through space using appropriately…
Eros Horizon View
Since April 30, the robotic NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft has been orbiting only 31 miles from asteroid Eros . Cruising over the asteroid's north and south poles at a leisurely 7…
Pleiades, Planets, And Hot Plasma
Bright stars of the Pleiades, four planets, and erupting solar plasma are all captured in this spectacular image from the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In…
M4: The Closest Known Globular Cluster
M4 is a globular cluster visible in dark skies about one degree west of the bright star Antares in the constellation Scorpius . M4 is perhaps the closest globular cluster at 7000…
Light Bridges on the Sun
Bridges the length of a planet can form on the Sun in a matter of hours. Known as light bridges , these structures may form as large sunspot groups decay. Above , one of the…
Antares and Rho Ophiuchi
Why is the sky near Antares and Rho Ophiuchi so colorful? The colors result from a mixture of objects and processes. Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight produces…
Sungrazer
Arcing toward a fiery fate, this Sungrazer comet was recorded by the SOHO spacecraft's Large Angle Spectrometric COronagraph (LASCO) on Dec. 23rd, 1996. LASCO uses an occulting…
An Aurora Before the Storm
Early April brought some of the most intense auroral storms this decade. An aurora on April 6 was reported to be the largest visible on Earth since 1989, and was seen throughout…
The Near Infrared Sky
Was this picture taken from outside our Galaxy? No, it is a composite taken from Earth orbit , well inside our Milky Way Galaxy . In light just a little too red for human eyes to…
The Far Infrared Sky
Three major sources contribute to the far- infrared sky : our Solar System , our Galaxy , and our Universe . The above recently released image , in representative colors, is the…
QSO H1821+643 Indicates a Universe Filled with Hydrogen
A quasar slightly depleted of a specific color of light may indicate that our universe is filled with massive amounts of ionized hydrogen . Light from QSO H1821+643, pictured…
A Halo Around the Moon
Have you ever seen a halo around the Moon? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal…
A Presidential Panorama of Mars
Scroll right to unfold one of the great panoramas ever taken on the surface of Mars . For best viewing, click and hold the right arrow icon at the bottom of your browser window.…
Surveyor Slides
“Safe!” In September 1967 ( during regular season play ), the Surveyor 5 lander actually slid several feet while making a successful soft landing on the Moon's Mare…
X-Ray Ring Around SN1987A
This false-color image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals a one light-year diameter ring of hot, ten million degree plasma. It is one of the most detailed X-ray images of…
NGC 3314: When Galaxies Overlap
Can this be a spiral galaxy? In fact, NGC 3314 consists of two large spiral galaxies which just happen to almost exactly line-up. The foreground spiral is viewed nearly face-on,…
Dog-Bone Shaped Asteroid 216 Kleopatra
An asteroid the size of New Jersey that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter has been discovered to have an unusual dog-bone shape. Asteroid 216 Kleopatra , recently mapped…
The Race to Reveal Our Universe
A race is underway to understand our universe through background radiation produced during its infancy. Observationally, increasingly accurate balloon experiments are pressing to…
Jupiter's Moons Thebe, Amalthea, and Metis
The robot spacecraft Galileo in orbit around Jupiter has recently photographed the inner moons of Jupiter in greater detail than ever before. These pictures of Thebe , Amalthea ,…
A Green Flash from the Sun
Many think it is just a myth. Others think it is true but its cause isn't known. Adventurers pride themselves on having seen it. It's a green flash from the Sun . The truth is the…
The Heart Of Orion
Newborn stars lie at at the heart of the the Orion Nebula , hidden from view by the dust and gas of the giant Orion Molecular Cloud number 1 (OMC-1). Sensitive to invisible…
Planets In The Sun
Today , all five naked-eye planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) plus the Moon and the Sun will at least approximately line-up. As viewed from planet Earth, they will be…
Planets Above The Clouds
Clouds scatter the faint orange rays of the setting sun in the foreground of this breathtaking photograph from the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii . Taken on April 7th, this skyscape…
BOOMERANG Images The Early Universe
Drifting through the stratosphere above Antarctica in late 1998 , the balloon -borne BOOMERANG telescope peered into the cosmos at millimeter wavelengths. The blotchy structures…
Viewing discoveries from 26 May 2000 through 3 May 2000.