The recent mission to the moon by Artemis II astronauts was memorable, inspiring, and scientifically important for so many reasons. It also brought us a treasure trove of new images and videos ready to be added to NASA’s vast library of content.
Consider this photo of Earth from more than 250,000 miles away, for example, taken from the other side of the moon. Or these widely shared pictures of our home planet from inside the Orion capsule, which were taken using iPhone 17 Pro Max phones. Truly out of this world snaps, but taken using a device many of us have in our pockets.
These images have popped up all across social media, but what you might not know is that NASA makes its huge library of images and videos available for anyone to dig through, marvel at, and reshare. Because NASA is funded by the US government, most of its published media is released into the public domain.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not immediately obvious where this library is and how you can access it.
If you’re ready to browse through decades’ worth of incredible photos and videoclips from NASA—from giant star constellations to spacesuit designs—here’s how to get started. A word of warning though: It’s easy to get lost for hours inside these collections.
The NASA Image and Video Library
Let’s start with the biggest resource: The NASA Image and Video Library. This is where you’ll find just about every image, video, and audioclip that NASA wants to share, from astronaut photos and space conferences to planet shots and satellite imagery. By default, you get to see the newest uploads first, but you can also click Trending & Popular to see frequently viewed content from across the years.
Click on an image or video here to get a wealth of information about it, including what it shows and when it was captured. Some of the captions here are mini-essays, and a lot of the content on this portal comes with EXIF data included, which will be of interest to photographers (or anyone who wants to know which pictures were snapped with an iPhone 17 Pro Max).
As wonderful as this resource is, it’s also difficult to sift through, unless you specifically know what you’re looking for. You’re basically relying on the search box at the top, and common keywords can return dozens and dozens of pages of results. Try being as specific as you can with search terms. Also, use the keywords on each photo and video listing to find related content.
NASA Images
In addition to the NASA Image and Video Library page, there’s also NASA Images—which includes a link to the Image and Video Library. (Those of you at the back, try to keep up). NASA Images isn’t as comprehensive as the Image and Video Library, but it is better organized, and it’s easier to find recent content here.
At the very top of the portal is the NASA Image of the Day, which is a great way to see the best that the NASA photo and video database has to offer. There’s also an Image of the Day archive you can use to browse back through time and discover even more stunning shots. Sadly, you can’t browse the archive by date.
Downloading content from NASA Images is straightforward, though you don’t get as much information on each picture as you do in the main library. It’s also easier here to find images grouped by collections, whether that’s photos taken by a specific telescope or organized by a particular mission.
NASA Johnson Flickr
Another way into the NASA content archive is through the NASA Johnson Flickr page. If you’ve never heard of Flickr before, it used to be the best place for storing and sharing images and videos in high resolution, before Apple and Google got around to properly developing their own apps for the job. Flickr still has plenty of fans, and the NASA account for the Johnson Space Center shows off the strengths of the portal.
There are more than 63,500 photos available through this Flickr account at the time of writing, and unlike the main NASA Image and Video Library, they’re all neatly organized into albums. It’s not difficult to find shots of a particular astronaut or from a particular mission, for example. Each image comes with plenty of information about the subject, as well as download links.
A search function helps you dig deeper into the NASA Johnson account. Even better, if you’ve got your own Flickr account, you can follow NASA and have new uploads to the account brought to your attention. It can take a little longer for photos to show up here, and the feed only has pictures from the Johnson Space Center, but it’s perhaps the best option for ease of navigation.
NASA Social Media
Finally, there’s NASA’s various social media accounts. If you’re already spending a lot of time on social media and want to see new content from NASA occasionally pop into your feeds, check out the agency on X, Instagram, and Facebook for starters.
A lot of this content is very well organized into collections and albums, and it’s tagged with the relevant information. However, getting downloads (especially at the best resolution) can be tricky, depending on the platform. Social media is really most suitable for the occasional dip into the images and videos that NASA has to offer.
One of the frustrations with trying to collect images and video this way is that there are so many different accounts to keep track of. On the X platform alone, you’ll find accounts specific to the Artemis missions, the International Space Station, everything connected to Mars, and the Webb telescope. It’s a lot to keep track of.
The post Where NASA Posts Its Best Space Photos, and How to Find Them appeared first on Wired.
