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.
Planets, Great Wall, and Solar Eclipse
This dramatic skyscape was recorded during the August 2008 total solar eclipse. The Moon's silhouette surrounded by a glistening solar corona hangs above the Jiayuguan Fort along…
Starburst Galaxy M94
Beautiful island universe M94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici . A popular target for earth-based…
The Hercules Cluster of Galaxies
These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster , an archipelago of island universes a mere 500 million light-years away . Also known as Abell 2151, this cluster is loaded with gas and…
The Chameleon's Dark Nebulae
The Chameleon is a small constellation near the south celestial pole . Boasting no bright stars , it blends inconspicuously with the starry southern sky. But, taken in dark skies…
Moons and Jupiter
Earth's Moon and planet Jupiter made a beautiful pairing in the night sky late last week. This skyscape recorded on July 11 from Brittany in north western France captures the…
Erupting Volcano Anak Krakatau
A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption…
A Cosmic Call to Nearby Stars
If Earth received this message from deep space , could we decode it? The people from the Cosmic Call project sent the above image as the first page of a longer message. The…
Noctilucent Cloud Storm Panorama
Noctilucent or night-shining clouds lie near the edge of space . From about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds can still reflect sunlight even though the Sun…
The Pillars of Eagle Castle
What lights up this castle of star formation? The familiar Eagle Nebula glows bright in many colors at once. The above image is a composite of three of these glowing gas colors.…
Fermi's Gamma-ray Pulsars
Born in supernovae, pulsars are spinning neutron stars, collapsed stellar cores left from the death explosions of massive stars. Traditionally identified and studied by observing…
The Dark River to Antares
Connecting the Pipe Nebula to the colorful region near bright star Antares is a dark cloud dubbed the Dark River , flowing from the picture's left edge. Murky looking, the Dark…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 18 July 2009 through 25 June 2009.