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.
Skylights Over Libya
Sometimes the sky itself seems to glow. Usually, this means you are seeing a cloud reflecting sunlight or moonlight. If the glow appears as a faint band of light running across…
One Million Galaxies
Are the nearest galaxies distributed randomly? A plot of over one million of the brightest “extended sources” detected by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) shows that they are…
Sideways Orion Over Snowy Ireland
Orion always comes up sideways ... and was caught in the act earlier this month by over a snowy landscape in Donegal , Ireland . To compose this serene picture, the photographer…
Decorating the Sky
Bright stars, clouds of dust and glowing nebulae decorate this cosmic scene, a skyscape just north of Orion's belt . Close to the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, the wide field…
Star Trails in the North
Pointing skyward, the wall of this ruined Viking church still stands after a thousand winters, near the town of Vallentuna, Sweden. The time exposure records the scene on December…
The Solstice Moon's Eclipse
A big, bright, beautiful Full Moon slid into planet Earth's shadow early Tuesday morning. Remarkably, the total lunar eclipse coincided with the date of the December Solstice .…
Hidden Galaxy IC 342
Similar in size to other large, bright spiral galaxies, IC 342 is a mere 7 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis . A sprawling…
Tyrrhenian Sea and Solstice Sky
Today the solstice occurs at 23:38 Universal Time , the Sun reaching its southernmost declination in planet Earth's sky . Of course, the December solstice marks the beginning of…
A Lunar Eclipse on Solstice Day
Sometime after sunset tonight, the Moon will go dark. This total lunar eclipse , where the entire Moon is engulfed in the shadow of the Earth, will be visible from all of North…
M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind
What's lighting up the Cigar Galaxy? M82 , as this irregular galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81 . This doesn't fully explain the…
North America and the Pelican
Here lie familiar shapes in unfamiliar locations . On the left is an emission nebula cataloged as NGC 7000, famous partly because it resembles our fair planet's continent of North…
A Meteor Moment
Intensely bright, this fireball meteor flashed through Tuesday's cold, clear, early morning skies over the Karkas Mountains in central Iran, near the peak of the annual Geminid…
Geminids over Kitt Peak
Two large telescope domes stand in the foreground of this night sky view from Kitt Peak National Observatory , near Tucson, Arizona, USA. The dramatic scene was recorded early…
A Huge Solar Filament Erupts
Click the arrow and watch an unusually long filament explode out from the Sun. The filament had been seen hovering over the Sun's surface for over a week before it erupted earlier…
Launch of a Delta IV Heavy
It is the tallest rocket in active use. The Delta IV Heavy is the largest of the Delta series , packing the punch of three rocket boosters instead of the usual one. The resulting…
Contemplating the Sky
Have you contemplated your sky recently? Tonight will be a good one for midnight meditators at many northerly locations as meteors from the Geminids meteor shower will frequently…
Leonids Above Torre de la Guaita
In 1999, Leonids Meteor Shower came to an impressive crescendo. Observers in Europe saw a sharp peak in the number of meteors visible around 0210 UTC during the early morning…
Meteor in the Desert Sky
Created as planet Earth sweeps through dusty debris from mysterious, asteroid-like, 3200 Phaethon , the annual Geminid Meteor Shower should be the best meteor shower of the year.…
A Twilight Occultation
A thin, one day old crescent Moon hugged the western horizon after sunset on Monday, December 6. The Moon also occulted or passed in front of Mars . But only some well-placed…
M81 and Arp's Loop
One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky and similar in size to the Milky Way , big, beautiful spiral M81 lies 11.8 million light-years away in the northern…
Intrepid Crater on Mars
The robotic rover Opportunity has chanced across another small crater on Mars. Pictured above is Intrepid Crater, a 20-meter across impact basin slightly larger than Nereus Crater…
Too Close to a Black Hole
What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Above is a computer generated image highlighting how strange things would look. The black hole has such strong gravity…
Mono Lake: Home to the Strange Microbe GFAJ-1
How strange could alien life be? An indication that the fundamental elements that compose most terrestrial life forms might differ out in the universe was found in unusual Mono…
Moonrise Through Mauna Kea's Shadow
How can the Moon rise through a mountain? It cannot -- what was photographed here is a moonrise through the shadow of a large volcano . The volcano is Mauna Kea , Hawai'i , USA ,…
Viewing discoveries from 28 December 2010 through 5 December 2010.