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.
Cassini At Jupiter: Red Spot Movie
Everything is big on Jupiter , the solar system's reigning gas giant. For example, Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a hurricane-like storm system at least twice the diameter of planet…
The Orion Nebula in Hydrogen
The Great Nebula in Orion can be found just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion . This fuzzy patch, visible to…
Fire on Earth
Sometimes, regions of planet Earth can be seen lit up with fire. Since fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and since oxygen is a key indicator of life, fire on any planet…
A 2000 Leonid Through Orion
The Leonid Meteor Shower this year could be described as good but not great. During November 17 and 18 the Earth crossed through several streams of sand-sized grit left orbiting…
Our Dusty Universe
What's black & white and red all over? Add our universe to this list. Adrift in a vast sea of darkness are not only familiar bright stars but dust that glows predominantly in far-…
Jupiter And Family
This composite image features classic portraits of members of one of the Solar System's most prominent families - Jupiter and its four large “Galilean” moons. Starting from the…
Leonid Sunrise
Such beautiful things begin as grains of sand. Locked in an oyster a granule grows into an iridescent pearl, lustrous and lovely to behold. While hurtling through the atmosphere…
A Daytime Fireball in 1944
While stationed in central Africa in December 1944, Norman Appleton witnessed a meteor so bright he remembered it his entire life. Right before his eyes a tremendous smoking…
Coronal Rain, Solar Storm
In this picture , the Sun's surface is quite dark. A frame from a movie recorded on November 9th by the orbiting TRACE telescope, it shows coronal loops lofted over a solar active…
The Yardangs Of Mars
OK, fans of classic science fiction might be disappointed. The yardangs are not barsoomian warriors in a newly discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs tale of adventure and conquest on…
Disorder in Stephan's Quintet
What are four closely grouped galaxies doing in this image ? The grouping composes a majority of the large galaxies in Stephan's Quintet , with the fifth prominent galaxy located…
The Lyman Alpha Forest
We live in a forest. Strewn throughout the universe are “trees” of hydrogen gas that absorb light from distant objects. These gas clouds leave numerous absorption lines in a…
The First Lunar Observatory
The first, and so far only, lunar astronomical observatory was deployed by the Apollo 16 crew in 1972. The Far Ultraviolet Camera / Spectrograph used a 3-inch diameter Schmidt…
X-Ray Cygnus A
Amazingly detailed, this false-color x-ray image is centered on the galaxy Cygnus A. Recorded by the orbiting Chandra Observatory , Cygnus A is seen here as a spectacular high…
The Cosmic X-Ray Background
Early on, x-ray satellites revealed a surprising cosmic background glow of x-rays and astronomers have struggled to understand its origin. Now, peering through a hole in the…
October Skylights
With brilliant Venus above the western horizon at sunset and Jupiter and Saturn high in the east by early evening, November's night sky is filled with bright planets. October's…
The Gum Nebula Supernova Remnant
Because the Gum Nebula is the closest supernova remnant , it is actually hard to see. Spanning 40 degrees across the sky, the nebula is so large and faint it is easily lost in the…
Heaven on Earth
If sometimes it appears that the entire Milky Way Galaxy is raining down on your head, do not despair. It happens twice a day. As the Sun rises in the East, wonders of the night…
Jupiter Swallows Comet Shoemaker Levy 9
What happens when a comet encounters a planet? If the planet has a rocky surface, a huge impact feature will form. A giant planet like Jupiter , however, is mostly gas . When…
Apollo 12: Self-Portrait
Is it art? In November of 1969, Apollo 12 astronaut-photographer Charles “Pete” Conrad recorded this masterpiece while documenting colleague Alan Bean's lunar soil collection…
New Moons For Saturn
Which planet has the most moons? For now, it's Saturn. Four newly discovered satellites bring the ringed planet's total to twenty-two, just edging out Uranus' twenty-one for the…
A Galaxy Collision in NGC 6745
Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 6745 actually shows the results of two galaxies that have been colliding for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above…
Double Asteroid 90 Antiope
This eight-frame animation is based on the first ever images of a double asteroid ! Formerly thought to be a single enormous chunk of rock, asteroid 90 Antiope resides in the…
The Perseus Cluster's X-Ray Skull
This haunting image from the orbiting Chandra Observatory reveals the Perseus Cluster of Galaxies in x-rays , photons with a thousand or more times the energy of visible light.…
Viewing discoveries from 23 November 2000 through 31 October 2000.