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.
Mosaic: Welcome to Planet Earth
Welcome to Planet Earth , the third planet from a star named the Sun . The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock . Over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is…
Moons Beyond the Rings of Saturn
What's happened to that moon of Saturn? Nothing -- Saturn's moon Rhea is just partly hidden behind Saturn's rings. In April, the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn…
Warped Sky: Star Trails Panorama
What's happened to the sky? A time warp, of sorts, and a digital space warp too. The time warp occurs because this image captured in a single frame a four hour exposure of the…
Ecliptic New Zealand
Four bright celestial beacons and a faint triangle of light follow the plane of the ecliptic as it arcs high through this southern hemisphere night skyscape. Seen on a July winter…
Microwave Milky Way
Seen from our edge-on perspective , the Milky Way Galaxy sprawls across the middle of this false-color, all sky view . The expansive microwave map is based on 1 year's worth of…
Dim World, Dark Nebula
Dim, distant, dwarf planet Pluto can be hard to spot, especially in recent months as it wanders through the crowded starfields of Sagittarius and the central Milky Way. But…
Concept Plane: Supersonic Green Machine
What will passenger airplanes be like in the future? To help brain storm desirable and workable attributes, NASA sponsors design competitions . Shown here is an artist's depiction…
HCG 87: A Small Group of Galaxies
Sometimes galaxies form groups. For example, our own Milky Way Galaxy is part of the Local Group of Galaxies . Small, compact groups, like Hickson Compact Group 87 ( HCG 87 )…
The Milky Way Over Pulpit Rock
Can a picture of the sky be relaxing? A candidate for such a picture might be this image taken only last month from Cape Schank , Victoria , Australia . The frame is highlighted…
Companion of a Young, Sun-like Star Confirmed
The first direct image of an extrasolar planet orbiting a star similar to our Sun has been confirmed. Located just 500 light-years away toward the constellation Scorpius , the…
A Giant Planet for Beta Pic
A mere 50 light-years away, young star Beta Pictoris became one of the most important stars in the sky in the early 1980s. Satellite and ground-based telescopic observations…
Galaxies on a String
Galaxies NGC 5216 (top) and NGC 5218 really do look like they are connected by a string. Of course, that string is a cosmic trail of gas, dust, and stars about 22,000 light-years…
Above Aurora Australis
On May 29, looking southward from a vantage point about 350 kilometers above the southern Indian Ocean, astronauts onboard the International Space Station watched this enormous,…
Fast Gas Bullet from Cosmic Blast N49
What is that strange blue blob on the far right? No one is sure, but it might be a speeding remnant of a powerful supernova that was unexpectedly lopsided. Scattered debris from…
Trees, Sky, Galactic Eye
Is beauty in the eye of this beholder? Earlier this month, over Runion Island in the Indian Ocean , a playful photographer with an eye for the sky took eight images and composed…
A Partial Lunar Eclipse
What's happened to the Moon? This past weekend, once again, part of the Moon moved through the Earth's shadow. This happens about once or twice a year, on the average , but not…
All the Colors of the Sun
It is still not known why the Sun's light is missing some colors. Shown above are all the visible colors of the Sun , produced by passing the Sun's light through a prism -like…
Young Star Cluster Westerlund 2
Dusty stellar nursery RCW 49 surrounds young star cluster Westerlund 2 in this remarkable composite skyscape from beyond the visible spectrum of light. Infrared data from the…
The Starry Night of Alamut
A meteor's streak and the arc of the Milky Way hang over the imposing mountain fortress of Alamut in this starry scene. Found in the central Alborz Mountains of Iran, Alamut…
The Dark Tower in Scorpius
In silhouette against a crowded star field toward the constellation Scorpius , this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of an ominous dark tower . In fact, clumps of dust…
Sunset from the International Space Station
What are these strange color bands being seen from the International Space Station? The Sun setting through Earth's atmosphere. Pictured above , a sunset captured last month by…
Islands of Four Mountains from Above
Our Earth is covered by volcanoes. Volcanoes are breaks in the Earth's cool surface where hot liquid rock from the interior comes out -- sometimes suddenly . In the above image…
Sunrise Solstice at Stonehenge
Today the Sun reaches its northernmost point in planet Earth's sky. Called a solstice , the date traditionally marks a change of seasons -- from spring to summer in Earth 's…
Abell 2218: A Galaxy Cluster Lens
What are those strange filaments? Background galaxies. Gravity can bend light, allowing huge clusters of galaxies to act as telescopes, and distorting images of background…
Viewing discoveries from 13 July 2010 through 20 June 2010.