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.
NGC 6188 and NGC 6164
Fantastic shapes lurk in clouds of glowing gas in NGC 6188, about 4,000 light-years away. The emission nebula is found near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible…
Light Pillars from a Little Planet
Eerie pillars of light ring the edges of this snowy little planet. Of course the little planet is planet Earth, shown in a nadir-to-zenith, around-the-horizon, little planet…
Rocket Streak and Star Trails
Fixed to a tripod and looking east across the Kennedy Space Center's Turn Basin, a camera captured these star trails as a series of short exposures over a three hour period on the…
Jelly Donut Shaped Rock Appears on Mars
What if a rock that looked like a jelly donut suddenly appeared on Mars? That's just what happened in front of the robotic Opportunity rover currently exploring the red planet.…
Spiral Galaxy M83: The Southern Pinwheel
M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky . Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra , majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the…
From the Northern to the Southern Cross
There is a road that connects the Northern to the Southern Cross but you have to be at the right place and time to see it. The road, as pictured above, is actually the central…
Sunspot Loops in Ultraviolet
It was a quiet day on the Sun . The above image shows, however, that even during off days the Sun's surface is a busy place. Shown in ultraviolet light , the relatively cool dark…
Opportunity's Decade on Mars
On January 25 (UT) 2004, the Opportunity rover fell to Mars, making today the 10th anniversary of its landing . After more than 3,500 sols ( Mars solar days ) the golf cart-sized…
Bright Supernova in M82
Astronomers really don't find supernovae by looking for the arrows. But in this image taken January 23rd , an arrow does point to an exciting, new supernova , now cataloged as SN…
Double Cluster in Perseus
This lovely starfield spans some seven full moons (about 3.5 degrees) across the heroic northern constellation of Perseus . Just right of center it holds the famous pair of open…
The Upper Michigan Blizzard of 1938
Yes, but can your blizzard do this? In Upper Michigan 's Storm of the Century in 1938, some snow drifts reached the level of utility poles . Nearly a meter of new and unexpected…
Micro Moon over Super Moon
Did you see the big, bright, beautiful Full Moon last Wednesday night? That was actually a Micro Moon ! On that night, the smallest Full Moon of 2014 reached its full phase only a…
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from SDSS-III
How large do things appear when far away? When peering across the universe, the answer can actually tell us about its average gravitational history and hence its composition .…
Spiral Galaxies in Collision
Billions of years from now, only one of these two galaxies will remain. Until then, spiral galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163 will slowly pull each other apart, creating tides of…
Apogee's Full Moon
This big, bright, beautiful Full Moon rose over Lick Observatory Wednesday night. Traditionally a full moon in January might be called the Wolf Moon . But this moon reached its…
M83 Star Streams
Big, bright, and beautiful, spiral galaxy M83 lies a mere twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra . This deep view of the…
Despina, Moon of Neptune
Despina is a tiny moon of Neptune . A mere 148 kilometers across, diminutive Despina was discovered in 1989, in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft taken during its encounter…
Spitzer's Orion
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula , an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. This stunning false-color view spans about 40 light-years…
The Gegenschein Over Chile
Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun? No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for “counter glow”) can be seen 180…
A Trip to the Moon
What would it be like to visit the Moon? The first major fictional cinematic film exploring this enduring transcultural fantasy was titled Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the…
The Scale of the Universe - Interactive
What does the universe look like on small scales? On large scales? Humanity is discovering that the universe is a very different place on every proportion that has been explored.…
The Seagull Nebula
A broad expanse of glowing gas and dust presents a bird-like visage to astronomers from planet Earth , suggesting its popular moniker - The Seagull Nebula. This portrait of the…
NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula
A mere seven hundred light years from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius , a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a…
The Tadpoles of IC 410
This telescopic close-up shows off the otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410 in striking false-colors. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and…
Viewing discoveries from 1 February 2014 through 9 January 2014.