What NASA Image and Video Library is
The NASA Image and Video Library (images.nasa.gov) is NASA's public archive of about 140,000 photos from its centres and missions: Hubble, Webb and Chandra views of galaxies and nebulae, planets from passing probes, Earth from the International Space Station, launches, astronauts at work, aircraft research and the people of NASA.
Best for
Space and astronomy pictures, Earth from orbit, rockets and astronauts, science illustrations. Originals are often several thousand pixels across, with resized 640–1920 px copies.
Licence and what it means for you
NASA media is generally not copyrighted in the US, and NASA allows commercial use with credit. It asks you not to use the NASA insignia or logotype, not to imply endorsement, and to get permission before using identifiable astronauts or staff in advertising. Images credited to partners such as ESA or a university may be copyrighted by them: those are marked 'check the terms'. All NASA images carry the editorial flag here because of the endorsement and insignia rules.
How Image Asset Server searches it
Through NASA's official, keyless API at images-api.nasa.gov. A search returns titles, descriptions, keywords, dates, a thumbnail and the original's size; opening an image reads its file list (original, large, medium, small). Thumbnails and downloads come straight from images-assets.nasa.gov.
