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.
The Supermassive Black Holes of NGC 6240
The Hubble optical image on the left shows NGC 6240 in the throes of a titanic galaxy - galaxy collision 400 million light-years away. As the cosmic catastrophe plays out, the…
Leonids and Leica
This lovely view from northern Spain , at Cape Creus on the easternmost point of the Iberian peninsula , looks out across the Mediteranean and up into the stream of the 2002…
Name This Martian Robot
NASA will launch two robots to Mars next year and you can help name them. The Mars Exploration Rovers are scheduled for launch on or near this coming June, when Mars and Earth are…
The Earth's Magnetic Field
Why does the Earth have a magnetic field ? The electrical conductivity of the molten plasma of the Earth's core should be able to damp the current magnetic field in only thousands…
Hubble Floats Free
Why put observatories in space? Most telescopes are on the ground. On the ground, you can deploy a heavier telescope and fix it more easily. The trouble is that Earth-bound…
Mare Orientale
Like a target ring bull's-eye, the Mare Orientale is one of the most striking large scale lunar features. Located on the Moon's extreme western edge, this impact basin is…
Full Moon, Lake, and Leonids Indeed
Full of itself moon - EVERYONE SHOULD LOOK AT ME. What's 33 years? And for those who need a story ... photographer Blake Suddeth took over a hundred digital pictures early Tuesday…
Starburst Galaxy M94
What could cause the center of M94 to be so bright? Spiral galaxy M94 has a ring of newly formed stars surrounding its nucleus, giving it not only an unusual appearance but also a…
Leonids vs. The Moon
Beautiful and bright, the 2002 Leonid meteors battled against glaring moonlight . This winning example, from Tuesday morning skies above Laughlin, Nevada, USA, finds an undaunted…
A Kitt Peak Leonid at 1026 UT
Reports of the 2002 Leonid Meteor Shower are coming in from across the world. Preliminary indications have the shower as less active than last year but with an impressive peak…
The Car, the Hole, and the Peekskill Meteorite
The Peekskill meteor of 1992 was captured on 16 independent video s and then struck a car. Documented as brighter than the full Moon , the spectacular fireball crossed parts of…
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 last year's Leonids…
Tempel-Tuttle: The Leonid Comet
Star trails streak this composite time exposure of comet Tempel-Tuttle recorded by Tim Puckett on January 26, 1998. Then passing through the inner solar system on its 33 year…
Night Trails of Africa
Spanning southern to northern skies, stars trail across this panoramic view of the African night from equatorial Kenya . The three hour long exposure was made on a clear, dark,…
The Sharpest View of the Sun
This stunning image shows remarkable and mysterious details near the dark central region of a planet-sized sunspot in one of the sharpest views ever of the surface of the Sun .…
Asteroid Annefrank
NASA 's interplanetary probe STARDUST , on its way to Comet Wild 2 in January 2004, passed asteroid 5535 Annefrank earlier this month. Annefrank , named for a holocaust victim who…
Terkezi Oasis in the Sahara Desert
Dominating the top third of Africa is the largest band of dry land on Earth: the Sahara Desert . Stretching across the Sahara are vast plains of sand and gravel, seas of sand…
The Outer Shells of Centaurus A
What causes the surrounding shells in peculiar galaxy Cen A? Last month a fascinating image of peculiar galaxy Centaurus A was released , processed to highlight a faint blue arc…
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…
A Cerro Tololo Sky
High atop a Chilean mountain lies one of the premier observatories of the southern sky: the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Pictured above is the dome surrounding…
NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula
This pretty planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 6369 , was discovered by 18th century astronomer William Herschel as he used a telescope to explore the constellation Ophiucus .…
2001 Leonids: Meteors in Perspective
The 2001 Leonid storm was so intense that the meteor shower's radiant, the point on the sky from which the fleeting trails seemed to diverge , was easy to spot. But the bits of…
The Winter Hexagon
Some of the brightest stars form a large and easily found pattern in the winter sky of Earth 's northern hemisphere . Dubbed the Winter Hexagon , the stars involved can usually be…
Leonids Over Joshua Tree National Park
This year's Leonid Meteor Shower is predicted to have two peaks, like last year's. The first peak should come at about 04:00 hours Universal Time (UT) on November 19 and be…
Viewing discoveries from 28 November 2002 through 5 November 2002.