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.
Supernova Survivor
Beginning with a full view of beautiful spiral galaxy M81 , follow the insets (left, bottom, then right) to zoom in on a real survivor. Seen at the center of the final field on…
Moon River
Shortly after sunset on September 6th, sky gazers around the world were treated to a lovely crescent Moon in western skies -- joined by bright planets Venus and Jupiter. In this…
IC 1396 in Cepheus
Stunning emission nebula IC 1396 mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust clouds in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus . Energized by the bright, bluish central star seen…
The View from Husband Hill on Mars
Scroll right to see a breathtaking panorama of Mars from the top of Husband Hill. The image was taken by the robotic rover Spirit now exploring the red planet . Spirit, situated…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
The tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus might be active. Even today, they may be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles…
Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae from SALT
Stars come in bunches. Of the over 200 globular star clusters that orbit the center of our Milky Way Galaxy , 47 Tucanae is the second brightest globular cluster, behind Omega…
Comet Hale-Bopp Over Val Parola Pass
Comet Hale-Bopp became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It was seen even over bright city lights . Out away from city lights, however, it put on quite a spectacular show…
Venus Unveiled
The surface of Venus is perpetually covered by a veil of thick clouds and remains hidden from even the powerful telescopic eyes of earth-bound astronomers. But in the early 1990s,…
X-Ray Portrait of Trumpler 14
A wonder of planet Earth's southern sky, star cluster Trumpler 14 lies about nine thousand light-years away in the Carina complex -- a rich star forming region at the edge of a…
One-Armed Spiral Galaxy NGC 4725
While most spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way , have two or more spiral arms, peculiar galaxy NGC 4725 has only one. In this false-color Spitzer Space Telescope infrared…
Crepuscular Rays Over Utah
What could cause such rays of dark? Dark sky rays were caught in spectacular fashion earlier this month above Kanab, Utah , USA . The cause is something surprisingly familiar:…
Albireo: A Bright and Beautiful Double
Sometimes, even a small telescope can help unlock a hidden beauty of the heavens. Such is the case of the bright double star Albireo . Seen at even slight magnification, Albireo…
Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico
Where will Hurricane Katrina go? One of the stronger storm systems of modern times appears headed for landfall somewhere in the southern USA sometime today. Katrina was designated…
Muon Wobble Possible Door to Supersymmetric Universe
How fast do fundamental particles wobble? A surprising answer to this seemingly inconsequential question has come out of Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York , USA and may…
3D International Space Station
Get out your red-blue glasses and float next to the International Space Station (ISS), planet Earth's largest artificial moon. This breathtaking stereo view was constructed from…
Full Moon, Green Rim
July's Full Moon looks strangely darkened and distorted in this remarkable telescopic view . The image is one of a series recorded when the Moon was very near the horizon. The…
Barred Spiral Milky Way
A recent survey of stars conducted with the Spitzer Space Telescope is convincing astronomers that our Milky Way Galaxy is not just your ordinary spiral galaxy anymore. Looking…
Epimetheus: A Small Moon of Saturn
How did Epimetheus form? No one is yet sure. To help answer that question, this small moon has recently been imaged again in great detail by the robot spacecraft Cassini now…
NGC 281: The Pacman Nebula
NGC 281 is a busy workshop of star formation. Prominent features include a small open cluster of stars, a diffuse red-glowing emission nebula , large lanes of obscuring gas and…
Desolate Mars: Rub al Khali
Sometimes on Mars , there is nothing to see but red sand. Traveling two kilometers south of Endurance Crater , the robotic rover Opportunity now exploring Mars stopped and took a…
A Lenticular Cloud Over Hawai'i
Can a cloud do that? Actually, pictured above are several clouds all stacked up into one striking lenticular cloud . Normally, air moves much more horizontally than it does…
The Stars of NGC 300
Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, individual stars of large spiral galaxy NGC 300 are resolved in this sharp image from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for…
NGC 1 and NGC 2
Beautiful nebulae , clusters , and galaxies that grace planet Earth's night sky are often known by their New General Catalog designation or NGC number . That classic listing was…
Sylvia, Romulus and Remus
Discovered in 1866, main belt asteroid 87 Sylvia lies 3.5 AU from the Sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Also shown in recent years to be one in a growing list of double…
Viewing discoveries from 10 September 2005 through 18 August 2005.