Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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Orion Spring
As spring comes to planet Earth's northern hemisphere, familiar winter constellation Orion sets in early evening skies and budding trees frame the Hunter's stars . The yellowish…
Naked Eye Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2
It quickly went from obscurity to one of the brighter stars in Sagittarius -- but it's fading. Named Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2 , the stellar explosion is the brightest nova…
Powers of Ten
How different does the universe look on small, medium, and large scales? The most famous short science film of its generation gives breathtaking comparisons. That film, Powers of…
Atlas V Launches MMS
Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human…
A Double Eclipse of the Sun
Can the Sun be eclipsed twice at the same time? Last Friday was noteworthy because part of the Earth was treated to a rare total eclipse of the Sun. But also on Friday, from a…
Northern Equinox Eclipse
Snowy and cold is weather you might expect at the start of spring for Longyearbyen on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. But that turned out to be good weather for…
Sunshine, Earthshine
Today's date marks an Equinox and a New Moon. Remarkably, while the exact timing of both geocentric events occur within a span of only 13 hours, the moon also reaches its new…
Aurora in the Backyard
On the night of March 17/18 this umbrella of northern lights unfolded over backyards in Vallentuna, Sweden about 30 kilometers north of Stockholm. A result of the strongest…
Earth During a Total Eclipse of the Sun
What does the Earth look like during a total solar eclipse? It appears dark in the region where people see the eclipse, because that's where the shadow of the Moon falls. The…
The Big Dipper Enhanced
Do you see it? This common question frequently precedes the rediscovery of one of the most commonly recognized configurations of stars on the northern sky: the Big Dipper . This…
The Clouds of Orion the Hunter
Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of giant molecular clouds some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning about 30…
A Total Eclipse at the End of the World
Would you go to the end of the world to see a total eclipse of the Sun? If you did, would you be surprised to find someone else there already? In 2003, the Sun , the Moon,…
Return at Sunrise
Thursday, shortly after local sunrise over central Asia, this Soyuz spacecraft floated over a sea of golden clouds during its descent by parachute through planet Earth's dense…
The Great Wall by Moonlight
Last Friday, an almost Full Moon rose as the Sun set , over this mountainous landscape north of Beijing, China. Also near apogee , the farthest point in its elliptical orbit…
Along the Cygnus Wall
The W-shaped ridge of emission featured in this vivid skyscape is known as the Cygnus Wall. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive outline popularly called The North…
Volcano of Fire Erupts Under the Stars
First, there was an unusual smell. Then there was a loud bang. But what appeared to the eye was the most amazing of all. While waiting near midnight to see a possible eruption of…
Aurora over Icelandic Glacier
Several key conditions came together to create this award-winning shot. These included a dark night, few clouds, an epic auroral display, and a body of water that was both calm…
Galaxy and Cluster Create Four Images of Distant Supernova
What are the unusual spots surrounding that galaxy? They are all images of the same supernova. For the first time, a single supernova explosion has been seen split into multiple…
Stars at the Galactic Center
The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas. But in this stunning vista , the Spitzer Space…
NGC 602 in the Flying Lizard Nebula
Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud , a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal…
Cometary Globule CG4
The faint and somehow menacing cometary globule CG4 reaches through the center of this deep southern skyscape . About 1,300 light-years from Earth toward the constellation Puppis,…
Enhanced Color Caloris
The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins , created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large…
Pillars and Jets in the Pelican Nebula
What dark structures arise from the Pelican Nebula? Visible as a bird-shaped nebula toward the constellation of a bird ( Cygnus , the Swan), the Pelican Nebula is a place dotted…
A Dust Devil on Mars
It was late in the northern martian spring when the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spied this local denizen . Tracking across the flat, dust-covered…
Viewing discoveries from 26 March 2015 through 3 March 2015.