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.
Inside Barringer Meteor Crater
What happens when a meteor hits the ground? Usually nothing much, as most meteors are small, and indentations they make are soon eroded away. About 50,000 years ago, however, a…
Moonbow and Rainbows Over Patagonia
Have you ever seen a moonbow? Just as rainbows are lit by the Sun, moonbows are lit by the Moon. Since the Sun is so much brighter than the Moon, sunlit rainbows are much brighter…
Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon
What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal , while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is…
Diamonds in a Cloudy Sky
Cloudy skies over Wuhan, China hid the delicate solar corona during July's total eclipse of the Sun . Still, the Moon's silhouette was highlighted by these glistening diamonds as…
The Star Clusters of NGC 1313
Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, individual stars of barred spiral galaxy NGC 1313 are resolved in this sharp composite from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for…
Galaxies in Pegasus
This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation Pegasus. Prominent at the upper right is NGC…
Betelgeuse Resolved
The sharpest image ever of Betelgeuse shows a mammoth star that is slowly evaporating. Betelgeuse (sounds a lot like “beetle juice”), also known as Alpha Orionis , is one of the…
A Triple Sunrise Over Gdansk Bay
How can the same Sun rise three times? Last month on Friday, 2009 July 10, a spectacular triple sunrise was photographed at about 4:30 am over Gdansk Bay in Gdansk , Poland .…
T Tauri: A Star is Formed
What does a star look like when it is forming? The prototypical example is the variable star T Tauri , visible as the bright orange star near the image center. The orange star…
Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 6559
When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case is the star forming region NGC 6559 . Visible above are red glowing emission nebulas of hydrogen , blue reflection nebulas of…
SN 1006 Supernova Remnant
A new star, likely the brightest supernova in recorded human history, lit up planet Earth's sky in the year 1006 AD. The expanding debris cloud from the stellar explosion, found…
Hubble View: Jupiter Impact
This sprawling dark marking is Jupiter's latest impact scar, a debris plume created as a small asteroid or comet disintegrated after plunging into the gas giant's atmosphere.…
6 Minutes 42 Seconds
The July 22nd total solar eclipse was the longest of the 21st century . From the point of maximum eclipse along the Moon's shadow track across the Pacific Ocean, the Moon…
The Milky Way Over Devils Tower
Was Devils Tower once an explosive volcano? Famous for its appearance in films such as Close Encounters , the origin of Devil's Tower in Wyoming , USA is still debated, with a…
A Floral Aurora Corona
Few auroras show this level of detail. Above , a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta , Canada…
NGC 1097: Spiral Galaxy with a Central Eye
What's happening at the center of spiral galaxy NGC 1097? No one is sure, but it likely involves a supermassive black hole . Matter falling in from a bar of stars and gas across…
The Big Corona
Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun 's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is best. The human eye can adapt to see…
The Eagle Rises
Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this remarkable stereo view from lunar orbit. Created from two photographs ( AS11-44-6633 , AS11-44-6634 ) taken by astronaut Michael…
Eclipse over Chongqing, China
The daytime sky grew dark, the temperature dropped, and lights came on as Chongqing, China, was plunged into the Moon's shadow during the July 22nd total solar eclipse . This…
Jupiter's New Impact Scar
In July of 1994 pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with planet Jupiter. The explosive impacts sent plumes of debris high into the Jovian atmosphere creating dark markings…
The Lagoon Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars
Stars are battling gas and dust in the Lagoon Nebula but the photographers are winning. Also known as M8, this photogenic nebula is visible even without binoculars towards the…
The Horsehead Nebula
One of the most identifiable nebulae in the sky, the Horsehead Nebula in Orion , is part of a large, dark, molecular cloud . Also known as Barnard 33, the unusual shape was first…
Apollo 11: Onto a New World
A human first set foot on another world on July 20, 1969. This world was Earth's own Moon . In honor of today's 40th anniversary , NASA has released a digitally restored video of…
From the Moon to the Earth
After the most famous voyage of modern times, it was time to go home. After proving that humanity has the ability to go beyond the confines of planet Earth , the first humans to…
Viewing discoveries from 11 August 2009 through 19 July 2009.