Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Perseid over Albrechtsberg Castle
Medieval Albrechtsberg castle is nestled in trees near the northern bank of the river Pielach and the town of Melk, Austria . In clearing night skies on August 12, 2012 it stood…
NGC 3370: A Sharper View
Similar in size and grand design to our own Milky Way , spiral galaxy NGC 3370 lies about 100 million light-years away toward the constellation Leo. Recorded here in exquisite…
Meteors and Aurorae over Iceland
What's going on behind that mountain? Quite a bit. First of all, the mountain itself, named Kirkjufell , is quite old and located in western Iceland near the town of Grundarfjrur…
In the Vicinity of the Cone Nebula
Strange shapes and textures can be found in neighborhood of the Cone Nebula . The unusual shapes originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic…
Io's Surface: Under Construction
Like the downtown area of your favorite city and any self-respecting web site ... Io's surface is constantly under construction . This moon of Jupiter holds the distinction of…
Twisting with NGC 3718
A careful look at this colorful cosmic snapshot reveals a surprising number of galaxies both near and far toward the constellation Ursa Major . The most striking is NGC 3718 , the…
Tropic of Cancer
This intriguing monument can be found in Taiwan between the cities of Hualian and Taitong. Split into two sides, it straddles a special circle of latitude on planet Earth, near…
Moon Over Andromeda
The Great Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda (aka M31), a mere 2.5 million light-years distant , is the closest large spiral to our own Milky Way. Andromeda is visible to the unaided eye…
NGC 2392 from Hubble and Chandra
In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered the NGC 2392 . From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope…
Saturn, Titan, Rings, and Haze
This is not a solar eclipse . Pictured above is a busy vista of moons and rings taken at Saturn. The large circular object in the center of the image is Titan , the largest moon…
Hoag's Object: A Strange Ring Galaxy
Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Art Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object . On the outside is a ring dominated by…
Atacama's Cloudy Night
Storm clouds do sometimes come to Chile's Atacama desert, known as the driest place on Earth . These washed through the night sky just last month during the winter season,…
The Elephant's Trunk in IC 1396
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story , the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396 , in the high and far off…
The Beautiful Trifid
The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star…
Two Views of Earth
In a cross-Solar System interplanetary first, our Earth was photographed during the same day from both Mercury and Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just…
Earth and Moon from Saturn
You are here. Everyone you've ever known is here. Every human who has ever lived -- is here. Pictured above is the Earth-Moon system as captured by the Cassini mission orbiting…
The Seasons of Saturn
Since Saturn's axis is tilted as it orbits the Sun , Saturn has seasons , like those of planet Earth ... but Saturn's seasons last for over seven years. So what season is it on…
Comet Lemmon and the Deep Sky
Now sweeping high above the ecliptic plane, Comet Lemmon has faded dramatically in planet Earth's night sky as it heads for the outer solar system. Some 16 light-minutes (2 AU)…
Take a Picture of Saturn
Take a picture of Saturn in the sky tonight. You could capture a view like this one. Recorded just last month looking toward the south, planet Earth and ruins of the ancient…
Hidden Galaxy IC 342
Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis . A…
A Waterspout in Florida
What's happening over the water? Pictured above is one of the better images yet recorded of a waterspout , a type of tornado that occurs over water. Waterspouts are spinning…
The Moon from Zond 8
Which moon is this? Earth's. Our Moon's unfamiliar appearance is due partly to an unfamiliar viewing angle as captured by a little-known spacecraft -- the Soviet Union's Zond 8…
The Sombrero Galaxy from Hale
What's going on in the center of this spiral galaxy? Named the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like resemblance, M104 features a prominent dust lane and a bright halo of stars and…
The Pillars of Eagle Castle
What lights up this castle of star formation? The familiar Eagle Nebula glows bright in many colors at once. The above image is a composite of three of these glowing gas colors.…
Viewing discoveries from 9 August 2013 through 14 July 2013.