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.
Skylab Over Earth
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a Saturn V rocket in May 1973. Skylab , pictured above , was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes stayed as long as…
NGC 7635: Bubble in a Cosmic Sea
Seemingly adrift in a cosmic sea of stars and glowing gas, the delicate, floating apparition near the center (next to a blue tinted star) of this widefield view is cataloged as…
NGC 4696: Energy from a Black Hole
In many cosmic environments , when material falls toward a black hole energy is produced as some of the matter is blasted back out in jets . In fact, such black hole “engines”…
Crumbling Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Approaches
A crumbling comet will soon pass near the Earth. Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is brightening and may even be visible to the unaided eye when the fragmented comet zooms past…
M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind
What's lighting up the Cigar Galaxy? M82 , as this irregular galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81 . This doesn't fully explain the…
Star Clouds over Arizona
The clouds in the foreground are much different than the clouds in the background. In the foreground are a photogenic deck of Earth-based water clouds . The long exposure used to…
The Solar Spectrum
It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun , produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism -like…
Z is for Mars
This composite of images spaced about a week apart - from late July 2005 (bottom right) through February 2006 (top left) - traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars…
NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe
Shiny NGC 253 , sometimes called the Silver Dollar Galaxy, is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible - and also one of the dustiest. First swept up in 1783 by mathematician…
A Dust Cloud in NGC 281
Stars themselves can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular cloud s from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed…
Mars and the Star Clusters
This evening's skyscape includes a view similar to this one , recorded in western skies on April 16 - an orange-hued planet Mars wandering near rich open star cluster M35 . Also…
NGC 246 and the Dying Star
Appropriately nicknamed “the Skull Nebula”, planetary nebula NGC 246 really does surround a dying star some 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Cetus . Expelled over a…
Barnard's Loop around the Horsehead Nebula
Why is the Horsehead Nebula surrounded by a bubble? Although glowing like an emission nebula , the origin of the bubble , known as Barnard's Loop , is currently unknown.…
A Solar Prominence from SOHO
How can gas float above the Sun? Twisted magnetic fields arching from the solar surface can trap ionized gas, suspending it in huge looping structures. These majestic plasma…
Galaxy Wars: M81 versus M82
In this stunning cosmic vista , galaxy M81 is on the left surrounded by blue spiral arms. On the right marked by massive gas and dust clouds, is M82 . These two mammoth galaxies…
Smoke from the Cigar Galaxy
Very bright in infrared light , well-known starburst galaxy M82's popular name describes its suggestive shape seen at visible wavelengths - The Cigar Galaxy . Ironically, M82's…
Star Cluster Dreams
Located some 7,000 light-years away toward the constellation Perseus, this pair of open or galactic star clusters really is visible to the unaided eye and was cataloged in 130 BC…
Binary Black Hole in 3C 75
The two bright sources at the center of this composite x-ray (blue)/ radio (pink) image are co-orbiting supermassive black holes powering the giant radio source 3C 75 . Surrounded…
A Sun Halo over Utah
Have you ever seen a halo around the Sun? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal…
Mars: The View from HiRISE
HiRISE - the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment - rides on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ( MRO )spacecraft just arrived in Mars orbit on March 10. This sharp view of the…
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68
Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud . Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular…
Vanishing Umbra
During the March 29 total solar eclipse, the Moon's dark central shadow or umbra is vanishing beyond the horizon in this dramatic view of the landscape a few kilometers southeast…
The Crown of the Sun
During a total solar eclipse, the Sun's extensive outer atmosphere or corona is an awesome and inspirational sight. The subtle shades and shimmering features of the corona that…
Unusual Bright Soil on Mars
What is this bright soil on Mars? Several times while rolling across Mars, the treads of the robotic rover Spirit have serendipitously uncovered unusually bright soil. Spirit…
Viewing discoveries from 29 April 2006 through 6 April 2006.