Browse NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day archive by date and media: Archive Discoveries
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NGC 7714: Starburst after Galaxy Collision
Is this galaxy jumping through a giant ring of stars ? Probably not. Although the precise dynamics behind the featured image is yet unclear, what is clear is that the pictured…
Sprite Lightning in HD
This phenomenon occurs in the sky over our heads, not the sea. It is a type of lightning known as red sprite, and rarely has it ever been photographed in this detail. Even though…
Io Eclipse Shadow on Jupiter from Juno
What's that dark spot on Jupiter? It's the shadow of Jupiter 's most volcanic moon Io . Since Jupiter shines predominantly by reflected sunlight, anything that blocks that light…
The Horsehead Nebula
The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the red emission nebula in the center of the above photograph. The…
Jupiter and the Moons
After sunset on October 3, some of the Solar System's largest moons stood low along the western horizon with the largest planet . Just after nightfall, a pairing of the Moon…
InSight on a Cloudy Day
Clouds drift through the sky as the light fades near sunset in this three frame animated gif. The scene was captured on sol 145 beginning around 6:30pm local time by a camera on…
The Hydrogen Clouds of M33
Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of glowing hydrogen gas. A prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum…
Molecular Clouds in the Carina Nebula
They are not alive -- but they are dying. The unusual forms found in the Carina nebula , a few of which are featured here, might best be described as evaporating . Energetic light…
Orion Rising over Brazil
Have you seen Orion lately? The next few months will be the best for seeing this familiar constellation as it rises continually earlier in the night. However, Orion's stars and…
MyCn 18: The Engraved Hourglass Planetary Nebula
Do you see the hourglass shape -- or does it see you? If you can picture it, the rings of MyCn 18 trace the outline of an hourglass -- although one with an unusual eye in its…
An Analemma of the Sun
This week the equinox found the Sun near the middle, but not at the crossing point, of an analemma in its annual trek through planet Earth's skies. In this scenic view , that…
The Annotated Galactic Center
The center of our Milky Way galaxy can be found some 26,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius . Even on a dark night, you can't really see it though. Gaze in…
Da Vinci Rise
An old Moon rose this morning, its waning sunlit crescent shining just above the eastern horizon before sunrise. But earthshine , light reflected from a bright planet Earth, lit…
The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars
The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070, the official designation, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust . The…
Sand Dunes Thawing on Mars
What are these strange shapes on Mars? Defrosting sand dunes. As Spring dawned on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, dunes of sand near the pole, as pictured here in late May by…
Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice
Today is an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. Tomorrow, and every day until the next equinox , the night will be longer than the day in Earth's northern hemisphere,…
Eye Sky a Dragon
What do you see when you look into this sky? In the center, in the dark, do you see a night sky filled with stars? Do you see a sunset to the left? Clouds all around? Do you see…
The Tulip in the Swan
Framing a bright emission region, this telescopic view looks out across a pretty field of stars along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, toward the nebula rich constellation…
Saturn at Night
Still bright in planet Earth's night skies, good telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it a star at star parties . But this stunning view of Saturn's rings…
Along the Western Veil
Delicate in appearance , these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, are draped across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus. They form the western part of the Veil…
Gigantic Jet Lightning over India
Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this? While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught…
Water Vapor Discovered on Distant Exoplanet
Where else might life exist? One of humanity's great outstanding questions, locating planets where extrasolar life might survive took a step forward recently with the discovery of…
A Lunar Corona over Turin
What are those colorful rings around the Moon? A corona . Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the quantum…
A Long Storm System on Saturn
It was one of the largest and longest lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen in late 2010, the above cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn…
Viewing discoveries from 9 October 2019 through 15 September 2019.