Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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A Dangerous Sunrise on Gliese 876d
On planet Gliese 876d, sunrises might be dangerous. Although nobody really knows what conditions are like on this close-in planet orbiting variable red dwarf star Gliese 876 , the…
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…
Flying Over the Columbia Hills of Mars
What it would be like to fly over Mars? Combining terrain data from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (now dormant) with information about the robotic Spirit rover…
On the Origin of Gold
Where did the gold in your jewelry originate? No one is completely sure . The relative average abundance in our Solar System appears higher than can be made in the early universe…
Logarithmic Spirals
Uncomfortably close Typhoon Rammasun (right) and 25 million light-year distant galaxy M101 don't seem to have much in common. For starters, Rammasun was only a thousand kilometers…
Circles in the Sky
Gazing skyward on a sunny day in May, photographer Jean-Marc Lecleire captured this engaging display of ice halos forming complete circles in the sky. Recorded with a fish-eye…
Sideways Galaxy NGC 3628
Dark dust lanes cut across the middle of this gorgeous island universe , a strong hint that NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy seen sideways . About 35 million light-years away in the…
A Supply Ship Docks with the International Space Station
Looking out a window of the International Space Station brings breathtaking views. Visible vistas include a vast and colorful Earth , a deep dark sky , and an occasional spaceship…
Ancient Craters of Southern Rhea
Saturn's ragged moon Rhea has one of the oldest surfaces known. Estimated as changing little in the past billion years, Rhea shows craters so old they no longer appear round their…
The M81 Galaxy Group Through the Integrated Flux Nebula
Large galaxies and faint nebulae highlight this deep image of the M81 Group of galaxies. First and foremost in the wide-angle 12-hour exposure is the grand design spiral galaxy…
Retrograde Mars
Why would Mars appear to move backwards? Most of the time, the apparent motion of Mars in Earth's sky is in one direction, slow but steady in front of the far distant stars. About…
Stars and Mars
Wandering through the evening sky , on May 4th planet Mars stood in line with Castor and Pollux, the two bright stars of the constellation Gemini . In this time exposure of the…
Moon Meets Mercury
On Tuesday, May 6, while standing on planet Earth and sweeping your binoculars along the western horizon just after sunset , you might have encountered this arresting skyscape.…
The Dark Tower in Scorpius
In silhouette against a crowded star field toward the constellation Scorpius , this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower . In fact, clumps of dust…
The Gegenschein Over Chile
Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun? No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for “counter glow”) can be seen 180…
Galaxies Collide in NGC 3256
Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 3256 actually shows a current picture of two galaxies that are slowly colliding . Quite possibly, in hundreds of millions of years,…
A Persistent Electrical Storm on Saturn
How do large storms evolve on Saturn? On Earth, a hurricane can persist for weeks, while the Great Red Spot on Jupiter has been in existence for over 150 years. On Saturn , a…
An Antarctic Total Solar Eclipse
The Sun, the Moon, Antarctica, and two photographers all lined up in 2003 Antarctica during an unusual total eclipse of the Sun. Even given the extreme location, a group of…
Alborz Mountain Milky Way
Snow-capped stratovolcano Mt. Damavand climbs to 5,670 meters (18,598 feet) near the left edge in this panoramic view of the world at night . In the sky to the left of Damavand's…
Shaping NGC 6188
Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwise dark large…
The Giants of Omega Centauri
Globular star cluster Omega Centauri is some 15,000 light-years away and 150 light-years in diameter. Packed with about 10 million stars, Omega Cen is the largest of 200 or so…
Arp 272
Linking spiral arms, two large colliding galaxies are featured in this Hubble Space Telescope view, part of a series of cosmic snapshots released to celebrate the Hubble's 18th…
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Airplane Flight Patterns over the USA
What are these Earthlings going? Millions of people move about planet Earth by airplane every day. Hundreds of thousands of airplane flights take place over the US every day. A…
Star Forming Region NGC 3582
What's happening in the NGC 3582 nebula? Bright stars and interesting molecules are forming. The complex nebula resides in the star forming region called RCW 57. Visible in this…
Viewing discoveries from 21 May 2008 through 28 April 2008.