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.
Red Moon, Green Beam
This is not a scene from a sci-fi special effects movie. The green beam of light and red lunar disk are real enough, captured in the early morning hours of April 15. Of course,…
Waterton Lake Eclipse
Recorded on April 15th, this total lunar eclipse sequence looks south down icy Waterton Lake from the Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, planet Earth. The most…
Spica, Mars, and Eclipsed Moon
A beautiful, reddened Moon slid through dark skies on April 15, completely immersed in Earth's shadow for well over an hour. It was the year's first total lunar eclipse and was…
Mammatus Clouds over Nebraska
When do cloud bottoms appear like bubbles? Normally, cloud bottoms are flat . This is because moist warm air that rises and cools will condense into water droplets at a specific…
An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
Is there a monster in IC 1396 ? Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula , parts of gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on foreboding forms,…
Saturn in Blue and Gold
Why is Saturn partly blue? The above picture of Saturn approximates what a human would see if hovering close to the giant ringed world. The above picture was taken in 2006 March…
Clouds and Crosses over Haleakala
Aloha and welcome to a breathtaking skyscape. The dreamlike panoramic view from March 27 looks out over the 10,000 foot summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawai'i. A cloud layer seeps…
Mars near Opposition
Tonight Mars is between opposition (April 8) and closest approach (April 14) looping through the constellation Virgo opposite the Sun in the night sky. That makes it prime season…
Mars, Ceres, Vesta
That bright, ruddy star you've recently noticed rising just after sunset isn't a star at all. That's Mars , the Red Planet. Mars is now near its 2014 opposition (April 8) and…
M42: Inside the Orion Nebula
The Great Nebula in Orion , an immense, nearby starbirth region , is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas . Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge…
A Solar Eclipse from the Moon
Has a solar eclipse ever been seen from the Moon? Yes, first in 1967 -- but it may happen again next week. The robotic Surveyor 3 mission took thousands of wide angle television…
Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus
Do underground oceans vent through the tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into…
Lunar Farside
Tidally locked in synchronous rotation , the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to denizens of planet Earth . From lunar orbit , the Moon's farside can become familiar,…
Along the Western Veil
Delicate in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, draped in planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus, make up the western part of the Veil Nebula . The…
At the Edge of NGC 2174
This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds…
Mars Red and Spica Blue
A bright pair of sky objects will be visible together during the next few months. Mars will shine brightly in its familiar rusty hue as it reaches its brightest of 2014 next week…
Space Station Robot Forgets Key Again
Space station robot AFJ013 has forgotten her space lock key again. The frustrated robot was reduced to tapping on a space station window and asking for a human to let her back in…
2012 VP113: A New Furthest Known Orbit in the Solar System
What object has the furthest known orbit in our Solar System? In terms of how close it will ever get to the Sun, the new answer is 2012 VP113 , an object currently over twice the…
Io in True Color
The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. This picture , an attempt to show how Io would appear in the “true colors” perceptible to the average human eye, was taken…
A Milky Way Dawn
As dawn broke on March 27, the center of the Milky Way Galaxy stood almost directly above the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory. In the dry, clear sky of Chile's…
Stripping ESO 137-001
Spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 hurtles through massive galaxy cluster Abell 3627 some 220 million light years away. The distant galaxy is seen in this colorful Hubble/Chandra composite…
Stephan's Quintet Plus One
The first identified compact galaxy group, Stephan's Quintet is featured in this remarkable image constructed with data drawn from Hubble Legacy Archive and the Subaru Telescope…
M78 and Reflecting Dust Clouds
An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion . The dark filamentary dust not only absorbs…
Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust
What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula -- dust. The entire Orion field , located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and…
Viewing discoveries from 18 April 2014 through 25 March 2014.