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.
Meteors Between Stars and Clouds
Streaking high above diffuse clouds -- but well in front of distant stars -- are sand-sized bits of an ancient comet: meteors . These bits flaked off Comet Tempel-Tuttle during…
M17: Omega Nebula Star Factory
In the depths of the dark clouds of dust and molecular gas known as M17 , stars continue to form. The similarity to the Greek letter capital Omega gives the molecular cloud its…
Moon Shadow Moves Over Africa
When the Moon's shadow reached out and touched the Earth last week, the result was a solar eclipse . Such an eclipse is total only for observers located along a narrow path…
The International Space Station Expands Yet Again
The developing International Space Station (ISS) has changed its appearance yet again. Earlier this month the Space Shuttle Endeavor visited the ISS and installed the fourth of…
Jupiter, Io and Shadow
Pictured above is the innermost of Jupiter's Galilean satellites , Io, superposed in front of the gas giant planet. To the left of Io is a dark spot that is Io's own shadow. A…
Zimbabwe Solar Eclipse
Normally hiding from view in the glare of the Sun, the shy solar corona came out to play Wednesday as a total solar eclipse graced morning skies over southern Africa. This…
NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
NGC 2359 is a striking emission nebula with an impressive popular name - Thor's Helmet. Sure, its suggestive winged appearance might lead some to refer to it as the “duck nebula”,…
Moon, Mars, Venus, and Spica
Gliding toward today's total eclipse of the Sun, the crescent Moon has been rising early, just before dawn. And as a prelude to its close solar alignment , the Moon also completed…
Eclipse Over Acacia
On December 4th , for the second time in as many years, the Moon's shadow will track across southern Africa bringing a total solar eclipse to African skies. Reaching Africa just…
Nearby Spiral M33
Spiral galaxy M33 is a mid-sized member of our Local Group of Galaxies . M33 is also called the Triangulum Galaxy for the constellation in which it resides. About four times…
The Pleiades Star Cluster
It is the most famous star cluster on the sky. The Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city . Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45…
Surveyor Hops
This panorama of the cratered lunar surface was constructed from images returned by the US Surveyor 6 lander. Surveyor 6 was not the first spacecraft to accomplish a soft landing…
Open Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158
Open clusters of stars can be near or far, young or old, and diffuse or compact. Open clusters may contain from 100 to 10,000 stars, all of which formed at nearly the same time.…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 11 December 2002 through 18 November 2002.