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.
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…
Hydrogen in the LMC
A satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is an alluring sight in dark southern skies and the constellation Dorado . A mere 180,000 light-years…
Monsters of IC 1396
Is there a monster in IC 1396 ? Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, parts of the glowing gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on…
The Cat's Eye Nebula from Hubble
Staring across interstellar space, the alluring Cat's Eye nebula lies three thousand light-years from Earth. A classic planetary nebula , the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) represents a…
Shadows at the Lunar South Pole
What is it? It's a multi-temporal illumination map , of course. To make it, the wide angle camera on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft collected 1,700 images over a…
Virgo Cluster Galaxies
Well over a thousand galaxies are known members of the Virgo Cluster , the closest large cluster of galaxies to our own local group . In fact, the galaxy cluster is difficult to…
Peculiar Galaxies of Arp 273
The spiky stars in the foreground of this sharp cosmic portrait are well within our own Milky Way Galaxy . The two eye-catching galaxies lie far beyond the Milky Way , at a…
Rio Morning Moonset
As the Sun rose , a nearly full Moon set in this serene seaside vista captured last Monday from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the foreground, the reddened early morning sunlight…
The GRB 110328A Symphony
A symphony of planet-wide observations began abruptly on March 28 when the Earth-orbiting Swift satellite detected a burst of high-frequency gamma-rays from GRB 110328A. When the…
Visual Effects: Wonders of the Universe
What visual effects are depicted in this video? The effects were created by BDH for the BBC television show Wonders of the Universe, but are unlabeled in this version. Even so,…
View from Everest
What would it be like to stand atop the tallest mountain on Earth? To see a full panoramic vista from there, scroll right. Visible are snow peaked mountains near and far,…
The Tadpoles of IC 410
This telescopic close-up shows off the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410 in striking false-colors. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and…
Messier 101
Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least . About 170,000 light-years across, this…
Young Stars in the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud
Dust clouds and embedded newborn stars glow at infrared wavelengths in this tantalizing false-color composition from WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer . The cosmic…
Centaurus Radio Jets Rising
What if you could see the huge radio jets of Centaurus A rising? The Cen A radio jets are not only over a million light years long , they occupy an angular area over 200 times…
50 Years Ago: Yuri's Planet
On April 12th, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space. His remotely controlled Vostok 1 spacecraft lofted him to an altitude of 200 miles…
Otherworldly Planet Rise
What would a sunrise look like on another world? So far, humanity has only recorded sunrises on Mars and Earth , but it is fun to wonder what they would look like on planets known…
Sunspot Loops in Ultraviolet
It was a quiet day on the Sun . The above image shows, however, that even during off days the Sun's surface is a busy place. Shown in ultraviolet light , the relatively cool dark…
Lunar Farside
Tidally locked in synchronous rotation , the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to denizens of planet Earth . From lunar orbit , the Moon's farside can become familiar,…
Echoes from the Depths of a Red Giant Star
A journey to the center of a red giant star is very firmly in the realm of science fiction . But the science of asteroseismology can explore the conditions there. The technique is…
Planetary Nebula NGC 2438
NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula , the gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star billions of years old whose central reservoir of hydrogen fuel has been exhausted. About 3,000…
M74: The Perfect Spiral
If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation…
The Milky Way Over Tenerife
Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy ? Chances are you have never seen it like this -- nor could you. In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint…
Verona Rupes: Tallest Known Cliff in the Solar System
Could you survive a jump off the tallest cliff in the Solar System? Quite possibly. Verona Rupes on Uranus ' moon Miranda is estimated to be 20 kilometers deep -- ten times the…
Viewing discoveries from 27 April 2011 through 4 April 2011.