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.
Descent to a Comet
Yesterday, the first soft landing on a comet took place some 500 million kilometers from planet Earth as the Rosetta mission lander Philae settled on the nucleus of C67/P…
Philae Attempts Comet Nucleus Landing
Today humanity will make its first attempt to land a probe on the nucleus of a comet. As the day progresses, the Philae (fee-LAY) lander will separate from the Rosetta spacecraft…
Orion in Gas, Dust, and Stars
The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebulae to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of…
The Protoplanetary Disk of HL Tauri from ALMA
Why does this giant disk have gaps? The exciting and probable answer is: planets. A mystery is how planets massive enough to create these gaps formed so quickly, since the HL…
The Cat's Eye Nebula from Hubble
To some, it may look like a cat's eye. The alluring Cat's Eye nebula, however, lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. A classic planetary nebula ,…
Polar Ring Galaxy NGC 660
NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot , a sharp composite of broad and narrow band filter image data from the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea . Over 20 million…
The Map of Dione
This cylindrical projection global map is one of six new color maps of Saturn's midsized icy moons, constructed using 10 years of image data from the Cassini spacecraft .…
Sh2-155: The Cave Nebula
This colorful skyscape features the dusty Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155 , the Cave Nebula. In the composite image, data taken through narrowband filters tracks the…
NGC 4762: A Galaxy on the Edge
Why is there a bright line on the sky? What is pictured above is actually a disk galaxy being seen almost perfectly edge on. The image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a…
Moon and Earth from Chang'e 5-T1
Described at times as a big blue marble , from some vantage points Earth looks more like a small blue marble. Such was the case in this iconic image of the Earth and Moon system…
In Green Company: Aurora over Norway
Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds -- mostly. On the third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not…
Titan Beyond the Rings
When orbiting Saturn, be sure to watch for breathtaking superpositions of moons and rings. One such picturesque vista was visible recently to the robot Cassini spacecraft now…
The Day After Mars
October 31, 1938 was the day after Martians encountered planet Earth, and everything was calm. Reports of the invasion were revealed to be part of a Halloween radio drama, the now…
Milky Way over Devils Tower
A mysterious formation known as Devils Tower rises into the dark above northeastern Wyoming's prairie landscape in this 16 frame panoramic view. Seen against the night sky's thin,…
A Spectre in the Eastern Veil
Frightening forms and scary faces are a mark of the Halloween season. They also haunt this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova…
Iridescent Cloud Edge Over Colorado
Sometimes your eclipse viewing goes bad in an interesting way. While watching and photographing last Thursday 's partial solar eclipse , a popular astronomy blogger suffered…
Retrograde Mars
Why would Mars appear to move backwards? Most of the time, the apparent motion of Mars in Earth's sky is in one direction, slow but steady in front of the far distant stars. About…
Plane, Clouds, Moon, Spots, Sun
What's that in front of the Sun? The closest object is an airplane , visible just below the Sun's center and caught purely by chance. Next out are numerous clouds in Earth's…
Too Close to a Black Hole
What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Featured is a computer generated image highlighting how strange things would look. The black hole has such strong gravity…
Sunspots and Solar Eclipse
A New Moon joined giant sunspot group AR 2192 to dim the bright solar disk during Thursday's much anticipated partial solar eclipse. Visible from much of North America, the Moon's…
AR 2192: Giant on the Sun
As you (safely!) watched the progress of yesterday's partial solar eclipse, you probably also spotted a giant sunspot group . Captured in this sharp telescopic image from October…
Galaxies in Pegasus
This wide, sharp telescopic view reveals galaxies scattered beyond the stars and faint dust nebulae of the Milky Way at the northern boundary of the high-flying constellation…
Sunspot Group AR 2192 Crackles
One of the largest sunspot groups in recent years is now crossing the Sun. Labelled Active Region 2192, it has already thrown a powerful solar flare and has the potential to…
Mimas: Small Moon with a Big Crater
Whatever hit Mimas nearly destroyed it. What remains is one of the largest impact craters on one of Saturn 's smallest moons. The crater, named Herschel after the 1789 discoverer…
Viewing discoveries from 13 November 2014 through 21 October 2014.