NASA Space Data: APOD, Asteroids & Space Weather

Fetch current NASA open data from three built-in sources with no API key required (an optional personal key raises the rate limit from 30/hr to 1,000/hr).

Data Sources

🌌 Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)

Daily astronomy imagery with the expert caption. Get the latest image(s) or a specific date. NASA's most popular public feed — used by educators, media, and space enthusiasts worldwide.

☄️ Near-Earth Asteroids (NEO)

Real-time tracking of asteroids approaching Earth. Returns each object's name, estimated diameter, approach date, velocity, miss distance, and potential-hazard flag. Choose a single date or a date range up to 7 days.

🌩️ Space Weather (DONKI)

Solar activity alerts from NASA's Space Weather Database of Notifications:

• Solar Flares (FLR) — class (A/B/C/M/X), location, instruments
• Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) — speed, half-angle, linked analyses
• Geomagnetic Storms (GST) — K-index severity
• Solar Energetic Particles (SEP) — particle event class
• All notifications — recent advisory bulletins

Example Inputs

Fetch today's astro photo, today's asteroids, and recent space weather

{
  "source": ["apod", "neo", "donki"],
  "apodCount": 1,
  "neoMode": "feed",
  "maxAsteroids": 50,
  "donkiType": "all"
}

5 most recent APOD images + today's near-Earth objects

{
  "source": ["apod", "neo"],
  "apodCount": 5,
  "neoStartDate": "2024-03-01",
  "neoEndDate": "2024-03-01",
  "maxAsteroids": 100
}

Solar flare and geomagnetic storm watch (last 30 days)

{
  "source": ["donki"],
  "donkiType": "flr"
}

Output

Each record is tagged with its source (APOD / NEO / DONKI) plus:

Field	Description
source	APOD / NEO / DONKI
date	Event or observation date
title	Image title or event name
description	NASA caption or explanation
url	Image/resource URL
type	image / asteroid / solar_flare / cme / geomagnetic_storm
metrics	Source-specific values (size, speed, K-index, class)
is_potentially_hazardous	NEO hazard flag
scraped_at	ISO timestamp of fetch

Data Source

api.nasa.gov — NASA's open data platform. Public domain data (17 USC §105). The built-in demo key allows 30 requests/hour; create a free key at api.nasa.gov and pass it in apiKey for 1,000/hr.

Use Cases

• Education & outreach: daily astronomy images for classrooms and content
• Media / science comms: space imagery and asteroid news stories
• Space industry: track solar weather that affects satellites and comms
• Research: asteroid close-approach data for astrophysics studies
• Monitoring: space-weather watch for aurora forecasts and satellite ops

Limitations

• Built-in demo key: 30 requests/hour. Supply your own key for production volume.
• NEO feed date range caps at 7 days per request.
• APOD is occasionally a video rather than an image (media_type distinguishes).