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.
Curiosity: Wheels on Mars
Could life ever have existed on Mars? To help find out, humanity landed the Curiosity rover on Mars last August. To make sure the car-sized explorer survived the interplanetary…
A Roll Cloud Over Uruguay
What kind of cloud is this? A roll cloud . These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist…
The Milky Trail
Have you ever hiked the Queen's Garden trail in Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA, planet Earth? Walking along that path in this dark night skyscape, you can almost imagine your journey…
The Eagle and The Swan
The Eagle Nebula and the Swan Nebula span this broad starscape , a telescopic view of the Sagittarius spiral arm toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Eagle, also known…
One-Armed Spiral Galaxy NGC 4725
While most spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way , have two or more spiral arms, NGC 4725 has only one. In this sharp color composite image , the solo spira mirabilis seems…
NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula
Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history , a new light would have suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this…
The Large Cloud of Magellan
The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result,…
Bird Sun Dog
Have you ever seen a little rainbow off to the side of the Sun? Rare but rewarding to see, such spectacles are known as sundogs, mock suns or parhelia. Sundogs are just sunlight…
PanSTARRS Anti-Tail Grows
As planet Earth approached the plane of the Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) orbit on May 23rd, comet watchers were treated to this view of its magnificent anti-tail . The long, narrow…
Lunar Corona over Cochem Castle
This bat-like apparition does not shine on clouds passing over Gotham city . Instead, the cloud bank in silhouette against a colorful lunar corona was spotted on the evening of…
Caterpillar Moon
A close series of consecutive exposures are combined in this intriguing composite of the Full Moon slowly crawling, across the sky . Beginning on the upper right at 19:42 UT and…
Messier 109
Beautiful barred spiral galaxy M109 , 109th entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog of bright Nebulae and Star Clusters , is found just below the Big Dipper's bowl in the…
Red Sprite Lightning with Aurora
What's that in the sky? It is a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 25 years ago: a red sprite . Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive…
The Red Rectangle Nebula from Hubble
How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the nebula's center is an aging binary star system that surely powers the nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The…
Blue Sun Bursting
Our Sun is not a giant blueberry. Our Sun can be made to appear similar to the diminutive fruit , however, by imaging it in a specific color of extreme violet light called CaK…
Earth's Richat Structure
What on Earth is that? The Richat Structure in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania is easily visible from space because it is nearly 50 kilometers across. Once thought to be an impact…
Comet PanSTARRS Anti-Tail
Once the famous sunset comet , PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) is now visible all night from much of the northern hemisphere, bound for the outer solar system as it climbs high above the…
The Waterfall and the World at Night
Above this boreal landscape , the arc of the Milky Way and shimmering aurorae flow through the night. Like an echo, below them lies Iceland's spectacular Godafoss , the Waterfall…
Four X-class Flares
Swinging around the Sun's eastern limb on Monday, a group of sunspots labeled active region AR1748 has produced the first four X-class solar flares of 2013 in less than 48 hours.…
Kepler's Supernova Remnant in X-Rays
What caused this mess? Some type of star exploded to create the unusually shaped nebula known as Kepler's supernova remnant , but which type? Light from the stellar explosion that…
Galaxy Collisions: Simulation vs Observations
What happens when two galaxies collide? Although it may take over a billion years, such titanic clashes are quite common. Since galaxies are mostly empty space, no internal stars…
Partial Solar Eclipse with Airplane
It was just eight minutes after sunrise, last week, and already there were four things in front of the Sun. The largest and most notable was Earth's Moon, obscuring a big chunk of…
Clouds, Birds, Moon, Venus
Sometimes the sky above can become quite a show. In early September of 2010, for example, the Moon and Venus converged , creating quite a sight by itself for sky enthusiasts…
Cape York Annular Eclipse
This week the shadow of the New Moon fell on planet Earth , crossing Queensland's Cape York in northern Australia ... for the second time in six months. On the morning of May 10,…
Viewing discoveries from 3 June 2013 through 11 May 2013.