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.
Tomorrow's picture:
Colorful stars trail through this late summer, night skyscape from Cape Cod , Massachusetts. The picture was composed by stacking 12 consecutive 1 minute long digital camera…
Moon, Venus and Planet Earth
In this engaging scene from planet Earth , the Moon shines through cloudy skies following sunset on the evening of September 8. Despite the fading light, the camera's long…
M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as dusty as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars…
Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689 Deflects Light
It is one of the most massive objects in the visible universe. In this view from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Abell 1689 is seen to warp space as…
Rotating Moon from LRO
No one, presently, sees the Moon rotate like this. That's because the Earth's moon is tidally locked to the Earth, showing us only one side. Given modern digital technology,…
M2-9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and…
A Landing on Planet Earth
With parachute deployed and retro-rockets blazing, this spacecraft landed on planet Earth on September 11 (UT) in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Seen in…
Crescent Moon Meets Evening Star
On September 8, brilliant planet Venus appearing as the evening star stood near a slender, crescent Moon at sunset. The close celestial pairing or conjunction was a scene enjoyed…
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. Less than 500…
LADEE Launch Streak
On September 6, a starry night and the Milky Way witnessed the launch of a Minotaur V rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. So did a large part…
Extrasolar Super-Earth Gliese 1214b Might Hold Water
Might this distant planet hold water? Actually, given how close Gliese 1214b is to its parent star, any water, if it exists, would surely be in the form of steam. In the above…
Nearby Cepheid Variable RS Pup
It is one of the most important stars in the sky. This is partly because, by coincidence, it is surrounded by a dazzling reflection nebula . Pulsating RS Puppis , the brightest…
Roll Cloud Over Wisconsin
What kind of cloud is this? A type of arcus cloud called a roll cloud . These rare long clouds may form near advancing cold fronts. In particular, a downdraft from an advancing…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 20 September 2013 through 28 August 2013.