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.
Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice
Today is an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. Tomorrow, and every day until the next equinox , the night will be longer than the day in Earth's northern hemisphere,…
Egging On the Autumnal Equinox
Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox -- should eggs be able to stand on end? This long-standing myth loses much of its mystique after a demonstration that eggs can be made to stand on…
A Darkened Sky
For a moment on August 1st, the daytime sky grew dark along the path of a total solar eclipse . While watching the geocentric celestial event from Mongolia, photographer Miloslav…
Companion of a Young, Sun-like Star
Located just 500 light-years away toward the constellation Scorpius , this star is only slightly less massive and a little cooler than the Sun . But it is much younger, a few…
Exploring the Ring
A familiar sight for northern hemisphere astronomers, the Ring Nebula (M57) is some 2,000 light-years away in the musical constellation Lyra . The central ring is about one…
MACSJ0025: Two Giant Galaxy Clusters Collide
What happens when two of the largest objects in the universe collide? No one was quite sure, but the answer is giving clues to the nature of mysterious dark matter . In the case…
W5: Pillars of Star Creation
How do stars form? A study of star forming region W5 by the sun-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope provides clear clues by recording that massive stars near the center of empty…
SN 1006: A Supernova Ribbon from Hubble
What created this unusual space ribbon? Most assuredly, one of the most violent explosions ever witnessed by ancient humans. Back in the year 1006 AD, light reached Earth from a…
The Heart and Soul Nebulas
Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia ? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula ,…
M33: Triangulum Galaxy
The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy . M33…
Planets over Perth
A bright trio of terrestrial planets was joined by a young Moon on September 1st, in planet Earth's early evening skies. In this view of the celestial gathering from Perth ,…
Mountain Top Meteors
A mountain top above the clouds and light-polluted cities was a good place to go to watch this August's Perseid meteor shower. In fact, this composite picture from one of the…
The Anthe Arc around Saturn
What created this unusual partial ring around Saturn? Discovered last year, the arc was captured in clear detail only two months ago by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft .…
M110: Satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy
Our Milky Way Galaxy is not alone. It is part of a gathering of about 25 galaxies known as the Local Group . Members include the Great Andromeda Galaxy (M31), M32 , M33 , the…
Rosetta Spacecraft Passes Asteroid Steins
What's that diamond in the sky ? Cruising though space, sometimes you'll come across an unusual object. Such was the case on Friday for ESA 's Rosetta spacecraft on its way to…
Searching for Meteorites in Antarctica
Where is the best place on Earth to find meteorites ? Although meteors fall all over the world, they usually just sink to the bottom of an ocean , are buried by shifting terrain,…
A Flock of Stars
Only a few stars can be found within ten light-years of our lonely Sun, situated near an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy . But if the Sun were found within one of our…
Milky Way Road Trip
In search of planets and the summer Milky Way , astronomer Tunç Tezel took an evening road trip . Last Saturday, after driving the winding road up Uludag , a mountain near Bursa,…
Spokes in the Helix Nebula
At first glance, the Helix Nebula ( aka NGC 7293 ), looks simple and round. But this well-studied example of a planetary nebula , produced near the end of the life of a sun-like…
31 Million Miles from Planet Earth
On July 4th, 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft directed a probe to impact the nucleus of Comet Tempel 1 . Still cruising through the solar system, earlier this year the robotic…
NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide
Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of startling sights like NGC 1316 . Their investigation indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy…
CG4: A Ruptured Cometary Globule
Can a gas cloud grab a galaxy? It's not even close. The “claw” of this odd looking “creature” in the above photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule . This globule,…
Eclipse over the Great Wall
Contrary to the famous myth , you can't see the Great Wall of China from the Moon ... even during a total solar eclipse . But on August 1 you could see the Moon eclipsing the Sun…
The View from Everest
What would it be like to stand atop the tallest mountain on Earth? To see a full panoramic vista from there, scroll right. Visible are snow peaked mountains near and far,…
Viewing discoveries from 22 September 2008 through 30 August 2008.