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.
Night in the Andes Ice Forest
This forest of snow and ice penitentes reflects moonlight shining across the Chajnantor plateau. The region lies in the Chilean Andes at an altitude of 5,000 meters, not far from…
The Quiet Sagittarius A*
Hot gas is hard to swallow. At least that seems to be true for the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy . Known as source Sagittarius A , the Milky Way's…
M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets . In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an…
IRAS 20324: Evaporating Protostar
Will this caterpillar-shaped interstellar cloud one day evolve into a butterfly-shaped nebula? No one is sure. What is sure is that IRAS 20324+4057 , on the inside, is contracting…
North America and the Pelican
Here lie familiar shapes in unfamiliar locations . On the left is an emission nebula cataloged as NGC 7000, famous partly because it resembles our fair planet's continent of North…
Milky Way Over Spain's Bardenas Reales
What's that below the Milky Way? First, across the top of the above image , lies the faint band that is our planet's sideways view of the central disk of our home Milky Way Galaxy…
Fire on Earth
Sometimes, regions of planet Earth light up with fire. Since fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and since oxygen is a key indicator of life, fire on any planet would be an…
NGC 5195: The Dot Under the Question Mark
Dwarf galaxy NGC 5195 is best known as the smaller companion of spiral M51, the Whirlpool galaxy . Seen together they seem to trace the curve and dot of a cosmic question mark ,…
A Sagittarius Triplet
These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way . In fact, 18th century…
Strawberry Sun
This striking, otherworldy scene really is a view from planet Earth. The ochre sky and strawberry red sun were photographed on August 22nd near the small village of Strawberry,…
A Retreating Thunderstorm at Sunset
What type of cloud is that? This retreating cumulonimbus cloud , more commonly called a thundercloud, is somewhat unusual as it contains the unusual bumpiness of a mammatus cloud…
A Flight through the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
What would it look like to fly through the distant universe? To find out, a team of astronomers estimated the relative distances to over 5,000 galaxies in one of the most distant…
Bright Planetary Nebula NGC 7027 from Hubble
It is one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky -- what should it be named? First discovered in 1878, nebula NGC 7027 can be seen toward the constellation of the Swan…
The Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 271
What will become of these galaxies? Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive this collision. Typically when…
Earth Waves at Saturn
This friendly photo collage is constructed from more than 1,400 images shared by denizens of planet Earth as part of the Cassini Mission's July 19th Wave at Saturn event . The…
A Spectrum of Nova Delphini
When a new star appeared in the constellation Delphinus late last week, astronomers found its spectrum hinted at the apparition's true nature. Now known as Nova Delphini 2013, its…
IC 5067 in the Pelican Nebula
The prominent ridge of emission featured in this dramatic skyscape is cataloged as IC 5067 . Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The…
Perseid Meteors Over China
Comet dust rained down on planet Earth earlier this month, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower . While enjoying the anticipated space weather above…
Venus and the Triply Ultraviolet Sun
An unusual type of solar eclipse occurred last year. Usually it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. Last June, most unusually, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar…
Noctilucent Clouds and Aurora Over Scotland
Why would the sky still glow after sunset? Besides stars and the band of our Milky Way galaxy, the sky might glow because it contains either noctilucent clouds or aurora. Rare…
Skylab Over Earth
Skylab was an orbiting laboratory launched by a Saturn V rocket in May 1973. Skylab , pictured above , was visited three times by NASA astronauts who sometimes stayed as long as…
M8: The Lagoon Nebula
This beautiful cosmic cloud is a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius . Eighteenth century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged the bright nebula…
Gallery:
Using a small telescope to scan the skies on August 14, Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki discovered a “new” star within the boundaries of the constellation Delphinus.…
The Magellanic Stream
In an astronomical version of the search for the source of the Nile , astronomers now have strong evidence for the origin of the Magellanic Stream . This composite image shows the…
Viewing discoveries from 7 September 2013 through 15 August 2013.