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.
Introducing Comet ISON
Could this dim spot brighten into one of the brightest comets ever? It's possible. Alternatively , the comet could break up when it gets closer to the Sun, or brighten much more…
A Galaxy Collision in NGC 6745
Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 6745 actually shows the results of two galaxies that have been colliding for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above…
NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus . Sometimes…
Stars in a Dusty Sky
Bright star Markab anchors this dusty skyscape. At the top right corner of the frame, Markab itself marks a corner of an asterism known as the Great Square , found within the…
Stars and Dust Across Corona Australis
Cosmic dust clouds sprawl across a rich field of stars in this sweeping telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis , the Southern Crown. Probably less than…
A Space Shuttle Over Los Angeles
It's not every day that a space shuttle lands at LAX. Although this was a first for the major Los Angeles airport hub, it was a last for the space shuttle Endeavour, as it…
Unusual Spheres on Mars
Why are these strange little spheres on Mars? The robotic rover Opportunity chanced across these unusually shaped beads earlier this month while exploring a place named Kirkwood…
NGC 2736: The Pencil Nebula
This shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Moving toward to bottom of this beautifully detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are…
Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice
Yesterday was an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. Today, and every day until the next equinox , the night will be longer than the day in Earth's northern hemisphere,…
Austrian Analemma
Today, the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading south at 14:49 Universal Time. An equinox (equal night), this astronomical event marks the first day of autumn in the northern…
September's Aurora
September's equinox arrives tomorrow as the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading south. The event marks the astronomical beginning of spring in the southern hemisphere and…
Sunrise Analemma (with a little extra)
An analemma is that figure-8 curve that you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day throughout planet Earth's year . In this case, a composite of 17…
Leaving Vesta
Next stop: Ceres. Last week the robotic Dawn spacecraft ended its year-long mission to asteroid Vesta , becoming the first spacecraft ever to visit this far off world located…
Orbiting Astronaut Self-Portrait
Is it art? Earlier this month, space station astronaut Aki Hoshide ( Japan ) recorded this striking image while helping to augment the capabilities of the Earth-orbiting…
A Solar Filament Erupts
What's happened to our Sun? Nothing very unusual -- it just threw a filament . At the end of last month, a long standing solar filament suddenly erupted into space producing an…
Saturn: Bright Tethys and Ancient Rings
How old are Saturn's rings? No one is quite sure. One possibility is that the rings formed relatively recently in our Solar System's history, perhaps only about 100 million years…
Ring Nebula Drawn
A planetary nebula with a simple symmetry familiar to telescopic sky gazers, the Ring Nebula ( M57 ) is some 2,000 light-years away in the musical constellation Lyra. Hints of…
Elliptical M60, Spiral NGC 4647
Giant elliptical galaxy M60 and spiral galaxy NGC 4647 do look like an odd couple in this sharp cosmic portrait from the Hubble Space Telescope. But they are found in a region of…
Cocoon Nebula Wide Field
In this crowded starfield covering over 2 degrees within the high flying constellation Cygnus , the eye is drawn to the Cocoon Nebula. A compact star forming region, the cosmic…
M7: Open Star Cluster in Scorpius
M7 is one of the most prominent open clusters of stars on the sky. The cluster, dominated by bright blue stars , can be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky in the tail of the…
Milky Way Over the Bungle Bungles
Which part of this picture do you find more interesting -- the land or the sky? Advocates for the land might cite the beauty of the ancient domes of the Bungle Bungle Range in…
Curiosity on the Move
Curiosity is on the move across Mars -- but where is it going? The car-sized rover's path after 29 Martian day s on the surface is shown on the above map . Curiosity is still…
Wisps Surrounding the Horsehead Nebula
The famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion is not alone. A deep exposure shows that the dark familiar shaped indentation, visible just below center, is part of a vast complex of…
Cosmic Rays at Voyager 1
Launched on a grand tour of the outer planets in 1977, by good fortune the twin Voyager spacecraft were also headed in the general direction of the Sun's motion relative to nearby…
Viewing discoveries from 1 October 2012 through 8 September 2012.