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.
Sky Panorama Over Lake Salda
As midnight approached, a spectacular sky appeared. Such was the case last month from the shore of Lake Salda in southwestern Turkey . In the above night sky panorama , rocky sand…
Global Warming Predictions
How much will the Earth's surface warm up over the lives of our children? No one is sure. Compared to the past 100 million years, the Earth is currently enduring a relative cold…
Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars
When does Mars act like a liquid? Although liquids freeze and evaporate quickly into the thin atmosphere of Mars, persistent winds may make large sand dunes appear to flow and…
The View Near a Black Hole
In the center of a swirling whirlpool of hot gas is likely a beast that has never been seen directly: a black hole . Studies of the bright light emitted by the swirling gas…
NGC 1333 Stardust
NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula , dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the…
Medieval Astronomy from Melk Abbey
Discovered by accident, this manuscript page provides graphical insight to astronomy in medieval times, before the Renaissance and the influence of Nicolaus Copernicus , Tycho de…
Castle and Full Moon
Clouds couldn't hide this bright Full Moon as it rose last week over the medieval castle of Tourrette-Levens near Nice, France. Exactly full on April 9 at 1456 UT, it followed the…
Jagged Shadows May Indicate Saturn Ring Particles
What's causing unusual jagged shadows on Saturn's rings? No one is yet sure. As Saturn nears equinox , its rings increasingly show only their thin edge to the Earth and Sun. As a…
M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy
Why do many galaxies appear as spirals ? A striking example is M101 , shown above , whose relatively close distance of about 27 million light years allows it to be studied in some…
Star Trails over the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
Just fix your camera to a tripod and you too can make an image of graceful trails traced by the stars as planet Earth rotates on its axis. Making a time lapse video like that…
M39: Open Cluster in Cygnus
Lying just at the limit of human perception is a picturesque starfield containing one of the larger open clusters on the northern sky. Spanning an angle larger than the Moon ,…
The Big Picture
Intricate, glowing nebulae that shine in planet Earth's night sky are beautiful to look at in deep images made with telescopes and sensitive cameras. But they are faint and…
ISS and Astronaut
These two frames, taken with a video camera and a telescope, reveal remarkable details of the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting some 350 kilometers above planet Earth .…
Venus Near Inferior Conjunction
This remarkable picture of a slender crescent Venus was made during daylight hours on March 26. Venus was then very near inferior conjunction , its closest approach to a point on…
Unusual Dusty Galaxy NGC 7049
How was this unusual looking galaxy created? No one is sure, especially since spiral galaxy NGC 7049 looks so strange. NGC 7049's striking appearance is primarily due to an…
The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 274
Two galaxies are squaring off in Virgo and here are the latest pictures. When two galaxies collide , the stars that compose them usually do not. This is because galaxies are…
International Space Station Expands Again
The developing International Space Station (ISS) has changed its appearance again. In a recently completed mission, the Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery visited the ISS and added…
Orange Sun Oozing
The Sun's surface keeps changing. Click the central arrow and watch how the Sun's surface oozes during a single hour. The Sun's photosphere has thousands of bumps called granules…
Star Party on Planet Earth
As twilight sweeps around planet Earth tonight (April 4), many amateur astronomers will set up their telescopes for a 24-hour global star party. The planetwide star party is part…
Around the World in 80 Telescopes
Want to go on an extraordinary voyage? Today you can, by watching Around the World in 80 Telescopes . The 24-hour long webcast is organized by the European Southern Observatory…
100 Hours of Astronomy Begins
Today, 100 Hours of Astronomy begins, a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's original telescopic…
Astronaut's Head Upgraded During Spacewalk
First, a new truss was added. Then, new solar panels were installed. Now, as part of the planned upgrade of the International Space Station , an Expedition 18 astronaut has…
In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula
In the heart of monstrous Tarantula Nebula lies huge bubbles of energetic gas, long filaments of dark dust, and unusually massive stars. In the center of this heart, is a knot of…
Possible Mud Volcanoes on Mars
Is this a mud volcano on Mars? If so, could it be dredging up martian microbes? This strange possibility has been suggested recently and seems to fit several recent observations…
Viewing discoveries from 22 April 2009 through 30 March 2009.