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.
Spiral Galaxy M96 from Hubble
Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the center of a beautiful island universe . Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy , and…
Global Ocean Suspected on Saturn's Enceladus
Do some surface features on Enceladus roll like a conveyor belt ? A leading interpretation of images taken of Saturn's most explosive moon indicate that they do. This form of…
A Prominence on the Sun
This eerie landscape of incandescent plasma suspended in looping and twisted magnetic fields stretched toward the Sun's eastern horizon on September 16. Captured through a…
A Plutonian Landscape
This shadowy landscape of majestic mountains and icy plains stretches toward the horizon of a small, distant world. It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers when…
Pickering's Triangle in the Veil
Chaotic in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas break across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus, as part of the Veil Nebula . The Veil Nebula…
Bright Spots Resolved in Occator Crater on Ceres
What created these bright spots on Ceres? The spots were first noted as the robotic Dawn spacecraft approached Ceres , the largest object in the asteroid belt , in February, with…
A Spiral Aurora over Iceland
What's happened to the sky? Aurora ! Captured late last month, this aurora was noted by Iceland ers for its great brightness and quick development. The aurora resulted from a…
Pluto from above Cthulhu Regio
New high resolution images of Pluto are starting to arrive from the outer Solar System. The robotic New Horizons spacecraft , which zoomed by Pluto in July , has finished sending…
A Partial Solar Eclipse over Texas
It was a typical Texas sunset except that most of the Sun was missing. The location of the missing piece of the Sun was not a mystery -- it was behind the Moon . Featured here is…
ISS Double Transit
Not once, but twice the International Space Station transits the Sun on consecutive orbits of planet Earth in this video frame composite. The scene was captured on August 22 from…
A Giant Squid in the Flying Bat
Very faint but also very large on planet Earth's sky, a giant Squid Nebula cataloged as Ou4, and Sh2-129 also known as the Flying Bat Nebula, are both caught in this scene toward…
NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad
The delightful Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies , a tantalizing target for binoculars in the constellation Musca , The Fly. The dusty cosmic cloud is seen against…
NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide
Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of startling sights like NGC 1316 . Their investigation indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy…
Distorted Green Flash Sunset over Italy
This was one strange sunset. For one thing, the typically round Sun appeared distorted, geometrically, and multiply layered . For another, some of these layers appeared unusually…
The Shark Nebula
There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula. This predator apparition poses us no danger, though, as it is composed only of interstellar gas and dust . Dark…
Earthrise
What's that rising over the edge of the Moon? Earth. About 47 years ago, in December of 1968, the Apollo 8 crew flew from the Earth to the Moon and back again. Frank Borman ,…
Atlas V Rising
Early morning risers along Florida's Space Coast, planet Earth, were treated to a launch spectacle on September 2nd . Before dawn an Atlas V rocket rose into still dark skies…
Milky Way with Airglow Australis
After sunset on September 1 , an exceptionally intense, reddish airglow flooded this Chilean winter night skyscape. Above a sea of clouds and flanking the celestial Milky Way, the…
Arp 159 and NGC 4725
Pointy stars and peculiar galaxies span this cosmic snapshot , a telescopic view toward the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices . Bright enough to show off diffraction…
The Flare and the Galaxy
Is this person throwing a lightning bolt? No. Despite appearances, this person is actually pointing in the direction of a bright Iridium flare , a momentary reflection of sunlight…
Distant Neutrinos Detected Below Antarctic Ice
From where do these neutrinos come? The IceCube Neutrino Observatory near the South Pole of the Earth has begun to detect nearly invisible particles of very high energy. Although…
Pluto in Enhanced Color
Pluto is more colorful than we can see. Color data and images of our Solar System's most famous dwarf planet , taken by the robotic New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in…
M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
What is the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy ? Andromeda. In fact, our Galaxy is thought to look much like Andromeda . Together these two galaxies dominate the…
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…
Viewing discoveries from 21 September 2015 through 29 August 2015.