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.
Across the Center of Centaurus A
A fantastic jumble of young blue star clusters, gigantic glowing gas clouds, and imposing dark dust lanes surrounds the central region of the active galaxy Centaurus A. This image…
A Landslide on Asteroid Vesta
Asteroid Vesta is home to some of the most impressive cliffs in the Solar System. Pictured above near the image center is a very deep cliff running about 20 kilometers from top to…
Shuttle Plume Shadow Points to the Moon
Why would the shadow of a space shuttle launch plume point toward the Moon? In early 2001 during a launch of Atlantis , the Sun , Earth , Moon , and rocket were all properly…
Pelican Nebula Close-up
The prominent ridge of emission featured in this vivid skyscape is designated IC 5067 . Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The Pelican…
A Glimpse of CLIMSO
A tantalizing glimpse inside this dome was captured after sunset at the mountain top Pic Du Midi Observatory in the French Pyrenees. But while most are just beginning their work…
Caught in the Afterglow
In this artist's illustration , two distant galaxies formed about 2 billion years after the big bang are caught in the afterglow of GRB090323 , a gamma-ray burst seen across the…
The View from Chajnantor
From an altitude of over 5,000 meters, the night sky view from Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes is breathtaking in more ways than one. The dark site's rarefied atmosphere,…
Leonid Fireball over Tenerife
Historically active, this year's Leonid meteor shower was diminished by bright moonlight . Still, faithful night sky watchers did see the shower peak on November 18 and even the…
Around the World in 90 Minutes
What is it like to circle the Earth? Every 90 minutes, astronauts aboard the International Space Station experience just that. Recently, crew members took a series of…
W5: Pillars of Star Formation
How do stars form? A study of star forming region W5 by the sun-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope provides clear clues by recording that massive stars near the center of empty…
In Wolf's Cave
The mysterious blue reflection nebula found in catalogs as VdB 152 or Ced 201 really is very faint. It lies at the tip of the long dark nebula Barnard 175 in a dusty complex that…
A Colorful Side of the Moon
This colorful topographical map of the Moon is centered on the lunar farside, the side not seen from planet Earth. That view is available to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter…
Pleiades to Hyades
This cosmic vista stretches almost 20 degrees across the gentle constellation Taurus . It begins at the Pleiades and ends at the Hyades, two of the best known star clusters in…
NGC 7822 in Cepheus
Hot, young stars and cosmic pillars of gas and dust seem to crowd into NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus , the glowing…
Orange Sun Scintillating
Our Sun is becoming a busy place. Taken just last week, the Sun was captured sporting numerous interesting features including one of the larger sunspot groups yet recorded: AR…
Waterfall, Moonbow, and Aurora from Iceland
The longer you look at this image , the more you see. Perhaps your eye is first drawn to the picturesque waterfall called Skogarfoss visible on the image right. Just as prevalent,…
The Butterfly Nebula from Hubble
Few butterflies have a wingspan this big. The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects , and NGC 6302 is no exception. With…
Sunspot Castle
Each day can have a beautiful ending as the Sun sets below the western horizon. This week, the setting Sun added naked-eye sunspots to its finale, as enormous active regions…
In the Arms of M83
Big, bright, and beautiful, spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra . This cosmic close-up, a…
RCW 86: Historical Supernova Remnant
In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism - a part of the sky identified with Alpha and Beta Centauri on modern star charts. The…
Asteroid 2005 YU55 Passes the Earth
Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed by the Earth yesterday, posing no danger. The space rock, estimated to be about 400 meters across, coasted by just inside the orbit of Earth's Moon.…
Jumping Sundogs Over Thunderclouds
What's happening above those clouds? In the past few years, videos have appeared on the web detailing an unusual but little known phenomenon: rapid light changes over clouds. Upon…
Star Forming Region S106
Massive star IRS 4 is beginning to spread its wings. Born only about 100,000 years ago, material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 2-106…
Orange Sun Oozing
The Sun's surface keeps changing. The above movie shows how the Sun's surface oozes during a single hour. The Sun's photosphere has thousands of bumps called granules and usually…
Viewing discoveries from 29 November 2011 through 6 November 2011.