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.
Stars and Gas of the Running Chicken Nebula
To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944 , the Running…
Galaxy Evolution Tracking Animation
How did the universe evolve from such a smooth beginning? To help understand, computational cosmologists and NASA produced the featured time-lapse animated video depicting a…
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
Mars will look good in Earth's skies over the next few days -- but not this good. To get a view this amazing , a spacecraft had to actually visit the red planet. Running across…
Cat's Eye Wide and Deep
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this…
The Great Carina Nebula
A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula , also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. Like the smaller, more…
IC 5067 in the Pelican Nebula
The prominent ridge of emission featured in this sharp, colorful skyscape is cataloged as IC 5067. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The…
NGC 5078 and Friends
This sharp telescopic field of view holds two bright galaxies. Barred spiral NGC 5101 (top right) and nearly edge-on system NGC 5078 are separated on the sky by about 0.5 degrees…
Milky Way Over the Spanish Peaks
That's not lightning, and it did not strike between those mountains. The diagonal band is actually the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, while the twin peaks are actually…
Inside a Daya Bay Antineutrino Detector
Why is there more matter than antimatter in the Universe? To better understand this facet of basic physics, energy departments in China and the USA led in the creation of the Daya…
LL Orionis: When Cosmic Winds Collide
What created this great arc in space? This arcing, graceful structure is actually a bow shock about half a light-year across, created as the wind from young star LL Orionis…
Milky Way and Planets Near Opposition
In this early May night skyscape, a mountain road near Bursa, Turkey seems to lead toward bright planets Mars and Saturn and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, a direction nearly…
3D Mercury Transit
On May 9, innermost planet Mercury crossed IN FRONT of the Sun. Though pictures project the event in only two dimensions, a remarkable three dimensional perspective on the transit…
The Surface of Europa
An enhanced-color view , this image covers a 350 by 750 kilometer swath across the surface of Jupiter's tantalizing moon Europa . The close-up combines high-resolution image data…
Halo from Atacama
Influenced by the strong Pacific El Nino , cloudy skies have more often come to Chile's high Atacama Desert this season, despite its reputation as an astronomer's paradise.…
The Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared
The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion . Long exposure, multi-wavelength images…
Clouds of the Carina Nebula
What forms lurk in the mists of the Carina Nebula? The dark ominous figures are actually molecular clouds , knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque . In…
Milky Way Over Quiver Tree Forest
In front of a famous background of stars and galaxies lies some of Earth's more unusual trees. Known as quiver trees, they are actually succulent aloe plants that can grow to…
Falcon 9 and Milky Way
On May 6, the after midnight launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up dark skies over Merritt Island, planet Earth. Its second stage bound for Earth orbit , the rocket's arc…
ISS and Mercury Too
Transits of Mercury are relatively rare. Monday's leisurely 7.5 hour long event was only the 3rd of 14 Mercury transits in the 21st century. If you're willing to travel, transits…
A Transit of Mercury
On May 9 , the diminutive disk of Mercury spent about seven and a half hours crossing in front of the Sun as viewed from the general vicinity of Earth . It was the third of 14…
A Mercury Transit Music Video from SDO
What's that small black dot moving across the Sun? Mercury. Possibly the clearest view of Mercury crossing in front of the Sun earlier this week was from Earth orbit. The Solar…
Saturn and Mars visit Milky Way Star Clouds
Planets, stars, nebulas and a galaxy -- this impressive image has them all. Closest to home are the two planets Mars (right) and Saturn (center), visible as the two bright orange…
Webb Telescope Mirror Rises after Assembly
Move over Hubble -- here comes the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST promises to be the new most powerful telescope in space. In the last month, the 18-segment gold-plated…
Mercury's Transit: An Unusual Spot on the Sun
What's that dot on the Sun? If you look closely, it is almost perfectly round. The dot is the result of an unusual type of solar eclipse that occurred in 2006. Usually it is the…
Viewing discoveries from 31 May 2016 through 8 May 2016.