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.
Blue Sun Bristling
Our Sun may look like all soft and fluffy, but it's not. Our Sun is an extremely large ball of bubbling hot gas , mostly hydrogen gas. The above picture of our Sun was taken last…
Seven Sisters Versus California
On the upper right, dressed in blue, is the Pleiades . Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45 , the Pleiades is one of the brightest and most easily visible open clusters on the…
Ares 1-X Rocket Lifts Off
Last week, NASA test fired a new rocket. The Ares 1 -X was the first non- shuttle rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center since the Saturn launched humans to Earth orbit and the…
The Average Color of the Universe
What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what…
VdB 152: Reflection Nebula in Cepheus
Described as a “dusty curtain” or “ghostly apparition”, mysterious reflection nebula VdB 152 really is very faint. Far from your neighborhood on this Halloween Night , the cosmic…
The Bubble and M52
To the eye, this cosmic composition nicely balances the Bubble Nebula at the upper right with open star cluster M52. The pair would be lopsided on other scales, though. Embedded…
Zodiacal Light Over Laguna Verde
An unusual triangle of light is visible this time of year just before dawn, in the northern hemisphere. Once considered a false dawn , this triangle of light is actually Zodiacal…
JKCS041: The Farthest Galaxy Cluster Yet Measured
What if we could see back to the beginning of the universe? We can -- since it takes the age of the universe for light to cross the universe. Peering at distant objects,…
Central Cygnus Skyscape
In cosmic brush strokes of glowing hydrogen gas , this beautiful skyscape unfolds across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy and the center of the northern constellation Cygnus the…
Galaxy Zoo Catalogs the Universe
You, too, can Zoo. The Galaxy Zoo project has been enabling citizen scientists -- inquisitive people like yourself armed with only a web browser-- to sort through the universe.…
M1: The Crab Nebula from Hubble
This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula , the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD , is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only…
NGC 7331 and Beyond
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way . About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus , NGC 7331 was…
A Galilean Night
Driving along on a summer evening , near the small town of Weikersheim in southern Germany, photographer Jens Hackmann had to stop. He couldn't resist pointing his camera and…
Moon and Planets in the Morning
Last Friday, a gathering of three bright planets and the Moon graced the morning sky . With Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and a narrow lunar crescent close to the eastern horizon in the…
Martian Dust Devil Trails
Who's been marking up Mars? This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails…
A Solar Prominence Erupts in STEREO
What does a solar prominence look like in three dimensions? To help find out, NASA launch ed the STEREO satellites to keep a steady eye on the Sun from two different vantage…
Nereus Crater on Mars
It was along the way. The robotic rover Opportunity currently rolling across the Meridiani Plain on Mars has a destination of Endeavour Crater , a large crater over 20 kilometers…
The Star Pillars of Sharpless 171
Towering pillars of cold gas and dark dust adorn the center star forming region of Sharpless 171. An open cluster of stars is forming there from the gas in cold molecular clouds .…
Bright Nebulae of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of bright emission nebulae. In fact, narrow-band and broad-band image data are combined in this beautifully…
Herschel Views the Milky Way
With a 3.5 meter diameter mirror, larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, Herschel is ESA's new infrared observatory . The space-based telescope is named for German-born British…
Fireball Meteor Over Groningen
The brilliant fireball meteor captured in this snapshot was a startling visitor to Tuesday evening's twilight skies over the city of Groningen. In fact, sightings of the meteor ,…
Pleiades and Stardust
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted…
Giant Dust Ring Discovered Around Saturn
What has created a large dust ring around Saturn? At over 200 times the radius of Saturn and over 50 times the radius of Saturn's expansive E ring , the newly discovered dust ring…
Stars Over Easter Island
Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there. The Easter Island statues , stand, on the average, over…
Viewing discoveries from 4 November 2009 through 12 October 2009.