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.
Asperatus Clouds Over New Zealand
What kind of clouds are these? Although their cause is presently unknown, such unusual atmospheric structures, as menacing as they might seem, do not appear to be harbingers of…
Coronal Rain on the Sun
Does it rain on the Sun? Yes, although what falls is not water but extremely hot plasma. An example occurred in mid-July 2012 after an eruption on the Sun that produced both a…
Fly Me to the Moons
Sometimes the Moon is a busy direction. Last week, for example, our very Moon passed in front of the planet Jupiter. While capturing this unusual spectacle from New South Wales ,…
M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Dust and Stars
The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51 , also known as NGC 5194, is one of the…
Chelyabinsk Meteor Flash
A meteoroid fell to Earth on February 15, streaking some 20 to 30 kilometers above the city of Chelyabinsk , Russia at 9:20am local time. Initially traveling at about 20…
Curiosity Self-Portrait Panorama
This remarkable self-portrait of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover includes a sweeping panoramic view of its current location in the Yellowknife Bay region of the Red Planet's Gale…
Gravitational Tractor
How would you change the course of an Earth-threatening asteroid? One possibility - a massive spacecraft that uses gravity as a towline - is illustrated in this artist's vision of…
Saturn's Hexagon and Rings
Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere…
Mercury on the Horizon
Have you ever seen the planet Mercury? Because Mercury orbits so close to the Sun, it never wanders far from the Sun in Earth's sky . If trailing the Sun, Mercury will be visible…
The Great Russian Meteor of 2013
What in heaven's blazes is that? Thousands of people living near the Ural Mountains in Russia saw last Friday morning one of the more spectacular meteors of modern times streak…
Asteroid 2012 DA14 Passes the Earth
There it goes. That small spot moving in front of background stars in the above video is a potentially dangerous asteroid passing above the Earth's atmosphere. This past Friday,…
Sweeping Through Southern Skies
For now , Comet Lemmon (C/2012 F6), and Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) are sweeping through southern skies. Lemmon's lime green coma and thin tail are near the left edge of this…
Shadows Across Jupiter
Two dark shadows loom across the banded and mottled cloud tops of Jupiter in this sharp telescopic view. In fact, captured on January 3rd, about a month after the ruling gas giant…
Solar System Portrait
On another Valentine's Day (February 14, 1990), cruising four billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back to make this first ever family portrait of our Solar…
Infrared Orion from WISE
The Great Nebula in Orion is a intriguing place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion . But this image , an illusory-color…
Reflected Aurora Over Alaska
Some auroras can only be seen with a camera. They are called subvisual and are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. In the above image , the green aurora were easily visible…
N11: Star Clouds of the LMC
Massive stars, abrasive winds , mountains of dust , and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies .…
Asteroids in the Distance
Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially…
The Great Meteor Procession of 1913
One hundred years ago today the Great Meteor Procession of 1913 occurred, a sky event described by some as “magnificent” and “entrancing” and which left people feeling…
NGC 6822: Barnard's Galaxy
Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small galaxies form stars too,…
Comet Lemmon near the South Celestial Pole
Currently sweeping through southern skies, Comet Lemmon (C/2012 F6) was named for its discovery last year as part of the Mount Lemmon (Arizona) Survey. Brighter than expected but…
The Arms of M106
The spiral arms of bright galaxy M106 sprawl through this remarkable multiframe portrait , composed of data from ground- and space-based telescopes . Also known as NGC 4258, M106…
Mars: Shadow at Point Lake
What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human? Then you might be the robotic Curiosity rover currently exploring Mars . Curiosity landed in Gale Crater last August and…
Namibian Nights
Namibia has some of the darkest nights visible from any continent. It is therefore home to some of the more spectacular skyscapes, a few of which have been captured in the above…
Viewing discoveries from 27 February 2013 through 4 February 2013.