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.
Globular Cluster M3 from WIYN
This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before humankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed , and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited…
Colors of Comet Pojmanski
Comet Pojmanski flew by planet Earth last weekend on a surprise trip through the inner solar system. Then an easy binocular target for morning skygazers , Pojmanski ultimately…
Enceladus and the Search for Water
Based on data from Cassini spacecraft instruments, researchers are now arguing that liquid water reservoirs exist only tens of meters below the surface of Saturn's small (500…
Trio Leo
This popular group is famous as the Leo Triplet - a gathering of three magnificent galaxies in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, these…
Earth's Shrinking Antarctic Ice Sheet
Is the continent at the end of the Earth slowly melting? For millions of years, Antarctica , the frozen continent at the southern end of planet Earth, has been encased in a…
A Nearby Supernova in Spiral Galaxy M100
One of the nearer supernovas of recent years was discovered last month in the bright nearby galaxy M100 . The supernova, dubbed SN 2006X , is still near its maximum brightness and…
Unexpected Comet Pojmanski Now Visible
Have you ever seen a comet? Comets bright enough to be visible to the unaided eye appear only every few years . Right now, however, a new comet has brightened unexpectedly and is…
Colorful Light Pillars
How can an aurora appear so near the ground? Pictured above are not aurora but nearby light pillars , a local phenomenon that can appear as a distant one. In most places on Earth,…
The Galaxy Within Centaurus A
Peering deep inside Centaurus A, the closest active galaxy to Earth, the Spitzer Space Telescope's penetrating infrared cameras recorded this startling vista in February 2004.…
Venus and Comet Pojmanski
Shining brightly in the east at dawn, Venus dominates the sky in this view over a suburban landscape from Bursa, Turkey. An otherwise familiar scene for astronomer Tunc Tezel, his…
Messier 101
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this…
Multiverses: Do Other Universes Exist?
Do nearly exact copies of you exist in other universes? If one or more of the multiverse hypotheses is correct, then quite possibly they do. In the above computer-enhanced…
The Flaming Star Nebula from CFHT
Rippling dust and gas lanes give the Flaming Star Nebula its name. The red and purple colors of the nebula are present in different regions and are created by different processes.…
GRB 060218: A Mysterious Transient
What is it? Something is happening in a small portion of the sky toward the constellation of Aries . Telescopes around the globe are tracking an unusual transient there as it…
Inside the Eagle Nebula
From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle . A closer look at the Eagle Nebula , however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell…
SOFIA's Window Seat
Earlier this month, a 2.5-meter diameter infrared telescope was permanently assigned a window seat , looking through this opening in the fuselage of a historic Boeing 747…
Recurrent Nova RS Ophiuci
This pretty star field in the constellation Ophiucus is centered on a star not often seen - RS Ophiuci. In fact, early last week RS Oph suddenly became visible to the naked eye…
Saturn Storm by Ringshine
Imaged on the night side of Saturn by the Cassini spacecraft , these swirling storm clouds are illuminated by ringshine - sunlight reflected from the gas giant's magnificent ring…
An Unusually Smooth Surface on Saturn's Telesto
Why is Saturn's small moon Telesto so smooth? Possibly Telesto is covered with a type of granular icy material similar to that suspected of covering Pandora , another of Saturn's…
Wisps Surrounding the Horsehead Nebula
The famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion is not alone. A deep exposure shows that the dark familiar shaped indentation, visible just below center, is part of a vast complex of…
SuitSat-1: A Spacesuit Floats Free
Who dunnit? Like a scene from a space mystery movie, a spacesuit floated away from the International Space Station earlier this month, but no investigation was needed. It was…
M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Dust and Stars
The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51 , also known as NGC 5194, is one of the…
Mir Dreams
This dream -like image of Mir was recorded by astronauts as the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis approached the Russian space station prior to docking during the STS-76 mission in…
Supernova Remnant and Shock Wave
A massive star ends life as a supernova, blasting its outer layers back to interstellar space. The spectacular death explosion is initiated by the collapse of what has become an…
Viewing discoveries from 12 March 2006 through 17 February 2006.