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 Trifid Nebula in Stars and Dust
Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Trifid Nebula . Also known as M20, this photogenic nebula is visible with good binoculars towards the…
Unknown Dark Material on Mercury
What is that strange material on Mercury? When flying by Mercury last October, the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft imaged much of the solar system's innermost planet in unprecedented…
Genesis Mission's Hard Impact
A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert in 2004 after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. No space aliens were involved, however. The…
Mount Rushmore's Starry Night
This starry night sky sparkles above the Black Hills of South Dakota and the United States' Mount Rushmore National Park . The historic site features enormous sculptures of four…
Perihelion and Aphelion
This year Aphelion, the point in Earth's elliptical orbit when it is farthest from the Sun, occurs tomorrow, July 4th. Of course, that doesn't affect the seasons on our fair…
Lyman Alpha Blob
Dubbed a Lyman-alpha blob, an enormous cloud of hydrogen gas spans several hundred thousand light-years in this remarkable image (left), a composite of x-ray, optical, and…
Three Galaxies in Draco
This intriguing trio of galaxies is sometimes called the Draco Group, located in the northern constellation of (you guessed it) Draco . From left to right are edge-on spiral NGC…
The North America and Pelican Nebulae
Here are some familiar shapes in unfamiliar locations. This emission nebula on the left is famous partly because it resembles Earth's continent of North America . To the right of…
Kaguya Spacecraft Crashes into the Moon
Japan's Kaguya spacecraft crashed into the Moon last week, as planned. Officially named the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE), the spacecraft was given the nickname…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
Do underground oceans vent through the tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into…
Saharan Starry Night
This panoramic image of a starry night looks across a dry, desolate landscape. The magnificent view was recorded from Tassili National Park , in the heart of the Sahara desert in…
Solstice to Solstice Solargraph
This six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice ( December 21, 2008 to June 20, 2009) into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the…
Sarychev Peak Volcano in Stereo
From 400 kilometers above planet Earth , the Expedition 20 Crew onboard the International Space Station ( ISS ) was able to witness a remarkable event from a remarkable vantage…
Noctilucent Clouds Over Germany
Sometimes it's night on the ground but day in the air. As the Earth rotates to eclipse the Sun, sunset rises up from the ground. Therefore, at sunset on the ground, sunlight still…
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68
Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud . Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular…
Atlas 5 Rocket Launches to the Moon
This rocket is headed for the Moon. Pictured above , a huge Altas V rocket roared off the launch pad last week to start NASA's first missions to Earth's Moon in 10 years. The…
Sunrise over the Parthenon
Today, the sun will stay in the sky longer than any other day of the year, as seen from the northern hemisphere of Earth. Named the Summer Solstice, today's maximum daylight is…
Seaside Moon Mirage
This surprising view of the Full Moon rising on June 7 was captured with a telephoto lens from a seaside balcony near Nice, France. The orange Moon's dark markings and odd shape…
Dunhuang Star Atlas
This ancient Chinese map of planet Earth's northern sky is part of the Dunhuang Star Atlas, one of the most impressive documents in the history of astronomy . The oldest complete…
NGC 6240: Merging Galaxies
NGC 6240 offers a rare glimpse of a cosmic catastrophe in its final throes. The titanic galaxy-galaxy collision is located a mere 400 million light-years away in the constellation…
M13: A Great Globular Cluster of Stars
M13 is one of the most prominent and best known globular clusters . Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hercules , M13 is frequently one of the first objects found by…
Moonrise Over Turkey
Is the Moon larger when near the horizon? No -- as shown above, the Moon appears to be very nearly the same size no matter its location on the sky. Oddly, the cause or causes for…
Streaming Dark Nebulas near B44
Dark dust lit by the bright yellow star Antares highlight this photogenic starscape of the southern sky. A wider angle image shows the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy…
Stars at the Galactic Center
The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas. But in this stunning vista , the Spitzer Space…
Viewing discoveries from 7 July 2009 through 14 June 2009.