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.
The Elephant's Trunk in IC 1396
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story , the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396 , in the high and far off…
I Zwicky 18: The Case of the Aging Galaxy
How old is this galaxy? The galaxy on the left, I Zwicky 18 , was once thought to be one of the youngest galaxies on record since its bright stars indicated an age of only 500…
SN 2005ap: The Brightest Supernova Yet Found
What could cause a bang this big? This supernova explosion was so inherently bright that it could be seen nearly 5 billion light years away (a redshift of 0.28) even with a small…
Jupiter's Clouds from New Horizons
The New Horizons spacecraft took some stunning images of Jupiter earlier this year while on the way out to Pluto. Famous for its Great Red Spot , Jupiter is also known for its…
NGC 3132: The Eight Burst Nebula
It's the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful planetary nebula . Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring…
Enceladus Ice Geysers
Ice geysers erupt on Enceladus , bright and shiny inner moon of Saturn. Shown in this false-color image , a backlit view of the moon's southern limb, the majestic, icy plumes were…
The Whale and The Hockey Stick
NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy seen edge-on (top right) only 25 million light-years away towards the small northern constellation Canes Venatici . This galaxy's…
Bright Planets, Crescent Moon
Early risers are currently enjoying the sight of dazzling Venus , near the eastern horizon as the morning star . Recorded on October 7, this predawn skyview does feature Venus at…
The Strange Trailing Side of Saturn's Iapetus
What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal , while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is…
Aurora, Stars, Meteor, Lake, Alaska
Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears. In this case, a picturesque lake lies in front of you, beautiful green aurora flap high above you,…
Galaxy NGC 474: Cosmic Blender
What's happening to galaxy NGC 474? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex and unexpected given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in…
Two Million Galaxies
Our universe is filled with galaxies. Galaxies -- huge conglomerations of stars , gas , dust -- and mysterious dark matter are the basic building blocks of the large-scale…
X-ray Stars of Orion
The stars of Orion shine brightly in visible light in planet Earth's night sky. The constellation harbors the closest large stellar nursery, the Great Nebula of Orion , a mere…
Starburst Cluster in NGC 3603
A mere 20,000 light-years from the Sun lies NGC 3603 , a resident of the nearby Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy . NGC 3603 is well known to astronomers as one of the…
50th Anniversary of Sputnik: Traveling Companion
Sputnik means “traveling companion”. Despite the innocuous sounding name, the launch of planet Earth's first artificial moon, Sputnik 1 , by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957,…
Comet Encke's Tail Ripped Off
Swinging inside the orbit of Mercury, on April 20th periodic comet Encke encountered a blast from the Sun in the form of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). When CMEs, enormous clouds…
Tutulemma: Solar Eclipse Analemma
If you went outside at exactly the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun appear to move? With great planning and effort, such a series of…
The Small Cloud of Magellan
Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two celestial…
A Milky Way Band
Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky. The above…
Dawn Launch Mosaic
Shortly after sunrise on Thursday at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Dawn spacecraft began its journey to the asteroid belt, arcing eastward into a blue and cloudy sky.…
A Hole in Mars Close Up
In a close-up from the HiRISE instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this mysterious dark pit, about 150 meters across, lies on the north slope of ancient martian…
Hole in the Sun
The dark expanse below the equator of the Sun is a coronal hole -- a low density region extending above the surface where the solar magnetic field opens freely into interplanetary…
Saguaro Moon
A Full Moon rising can be a dramatic celestial sight , and Full Moons can have many names. For example, tonight's Full Moon, the one nearest the autumnal equinox in the northern…
Zodiacal Light and the False Dawn
An unusual triangle of light will be particularly bright near the eastern horizon before sunrise during the next two months for observers in Earth's northern hemisphere. Once…
Viewing discoveries from 18 October 2007 through 25 September 2007.