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.
48 Years of Space Flight
This year, NASA celebrated its 50th anniversary . Inspired to make his own contribution, astronomer Ralf Vandebergh set out to record images of some historic spacecraft in Earth…
Camera Orion
Orion , the Hunter, is one of the most easily recognizable constellations in planet Earth's night sky . But Orion's stars and nebulas don't look quite as colorful to the eye as…
An Enceladus Tiger Stripe from Cassini
What creates the unusual tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus? No one is sure. To help find out, scientists programmed the robotic Cassini spacecraft to dive right past the…
Cassini Passes Through Ice Plumes of Enceladus
What telling impurities taint the ice plumes of Enceladus? To help answer this question, the robotic Cassini spacecraft dove last week to within 30 kilometers of Saturn's…
Spiral Galaxy NGC 3370 from Hubble
Is this what our own Milky Way Galaxy looks like from far away? Similar in size and grand design to our home Galaxy (although without the central bar), spiral galaxy NGC 3370 lies…
Bright Bolide
On September 30, a spectacular bolide or fireball meteor surprised a group of amateur astronomers enjoying dark night skies over the Oklahoma panhandle's Black Mesa State Park in…
Irregular Galaxy NGC 55
Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and is a well known satellite of our own…
Massive Stars in NGC 6357
Massive stars lie within NGC 6357 , an expansive emission nebula complex some 8,000 light-years away in the tail of the constellation Scorpius . In fact, positioned just below…
Mercury as Revealed by MESSENGER
The planet Mercury has been known since history has been recorded, but parts of the Solar System's innermost planet have never been seen like this before. Two days ago the robotic…
Dust Mountains in the Carina Nebula
Bright young stars sometimes sculpt picturesque dust mountains soon after being born. Created quite by accident, the energetic light and winds from these massive newborn stars…
Layers of Red Cliffs on Mars
How did these layers of red cliffs form on Mars? No one is sure. The northern ice cap on Mars is nearly divided into two by a huge division named Chasma Boreale . No similar…
Earth at Night
This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city ? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight…
A Solar Prominence Unfurls
On September 29, this magnificent eruptive solar prominence lifted away from the Sun's surface, unfurling into space over the course of several hours. Suspended in twisted…
Young Suns of NGC 7129
Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129 , some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus . While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only about a…
NGC 253 Close-Up
This dusty island universe is one of the brightest spiral galaxies in the sky. Seen nearly edge-on, NGC 253 lies a mere 13 million light-years away and is the largest member of…
The First Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
A new chapter in space flight began on 1950 July with the launch of the first rocket from Cape Canaveral , Florida : the Bumper V-2. Shown above , the Bumper V-2 was an ambitious…
Planets Ahoy!
Can you spot the Solar System's four rocky planets ? In the above image taken on September 20, all of them were visible in a single glance, but some of them may be different than…
A True Image from False Kiva
Is there any place in the world you could see a sight like this? Yes! This digital mosaic shows the night sky as seen from False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park , eastern Utah,…
Young Stars of NGC 346
The massive stars of NGC 346 are short lived, but very energetic . The star cluster is embedded in the largest star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud , some 210,000…
M83: The Thousand-Ruby Galaxy
Big, bright, and beautiful, spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra . Prominent spiral arms…
Moon Rays over Byurakan Observatory
On September 7th, the first quarter Moon and passing clouds contributed to a dramatic night sky over the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory . This panoramic view begins at the…
The Case of the Very Dusty Binary Star
For astronomers , close binary star system BD+20 307 originally stood out because it is extremely dusty. A substantial amount of warm dust surrounding it causes the system to…
Active Region 1002 on an Unusually Quiet Sun
Why has the Sun been so quiet recently? No one is sure. Our Sun has shown few active regions -- that house even fewer associated sunspots -- for over a year now, and such a period…
Haumea of the Outer Solar System
One of the strangest objects in the outer Solar System was classified as a dwarf planet last week and given the name Haumea. This designation makes Haumea the fifth designated…
Viewing discoveries from 16 October 2008 through 23 September 2008.