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.
Orion Nebula: The Hubble View
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula . Also known as M42 , the nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar…
Cartwheel of Fortune
By chance, a collision of two galaxies has created a surprisingly recognizable shape on a cosmic scale - The Cartwheel Galaxy . The Cartwheel is part of a group of galaxies about…
A Roll Cloud Over Missouri
What kind of cloud is this? A roll cloud . These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist…
Stardust Capsule Returns to Earth
A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert yesterday after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters and airplanes. Like last time , no space aliens…
The Sombrero Galaxy from HST
Why does the Sombrero Galaxy look like a hat? Reasons include the Sombrero 's unusually large and extended central bulge of stars, and dark prominent dust lanes that appear in a…
Lunokhod: Moon Robot
On November 17, 1970 the Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft landed the first roving remote-controlled robot on the Moon . Known as Lunokhod 1, it weighed just under 2,000 pounds and was…
Stars of the Galactic Center
The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas. But in this stunning vista , the Spitzer Space…
Infrared Helix
Over six hundred light years from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius , a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a well…
The Tadpoles of IC 410
This close-up view shows a portion of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410 in striking false-colors. It also shows two remarkable denizens of the glowing gas cloud at the right…
The Phases of Venus
Venus goes through phases. Just like our Moon , Venus can appear as full as a disk or as a thin as a crescent . Venus, frequently the brightest object in the post-sunset or…
M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster
Perhaps 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…
Arp 188 and the Tadpole's Tidal Tail
In this stunning vista recorded with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys , distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the…
Apollo 17's Moonship
Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the vacuum of space. This picture from command module America , shows Challenger's…
The Tarantula Nebula
First cataloged as a star, 30 Doradus is actually an immense star forming region in nearby galaxy The Large Magellanic Cloud . The region's spidery appearance is responsible for…
New Year Mars Panorama
According to an Earth-based calendar , the Spirit rover spent the first day of 2006 gathering data to complete this panoramic view from Gusev crater on Mars. That day corresponded…
Hauoli Makahiki Hou
Fading sunlight , a young crescent Moon , and brilliant Venus shared the western sky in this view of 2005's final sunset from the top of Mount Haleakala , on Maui, Hawaii. Also…
Dark Terrain on Saturn's Iapetus
Why are vast sections of Iapetus as dark as coal ? No one knows for sure. Iapetus, the third largest moon of Saturn , was inspected again as the Saturn-orbiting robot Cassini…
A Sun Pillar Over Maine
Have you ever seen a sun pillar ? When the air is cold and the Sun is rising or setting , falling ice crystals can reflect sunlight and create an unusual column of light. Ice…
The Largest Rock in the Solar System
There, that faint dot in the center - that's the largest rock known in our Solar System . It is larger than every known asteroid , moon , and comet nucleus . It is larger than any…
A Year at Saturn
Arriving at Saturn in July of 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has now spent a year and a half exploring the magnificent rings and moons of the distant gas giant. The year 2005 began…
The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies
Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster , one of the closest…
The Iris Nebula from CFHT
Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus . Sometimes…
Smooth Sections on Asteroid Itokawa
Why are parts of this asteroid's surface so smooth? No one is yet sure, but it may have to do with the dynamics of an asteroid that is a loose pile of rubble rather than a solid…
IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is…
Viewing discoveries from 19 January 2006 through 27 December 2005.