# nasa/apod-api

Astronomy Picture of the Day API service

Repository: https://github.com/nasa/apod-api
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/apod-api
Language: Python
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: astronomy-picture, astronomy, astronomy-picture-of-the-day, nasa, nasa-api, space, apod-api, apod-parser, astronomy-photo, apod-image
Last push: 2026-07-21T12:01:28+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 65/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 93, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3928, "days_push": 43, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1080, forks 205 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:30.411068+00:00)

## What it is
NASA's open-source microservice that serves the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) API, returning JSON metadata and image links parsed from the APOD website. It is a Python/Flask service deployable via Docker, and the same code powers NASA's public api.nasa.gov APOD endpoint.

## Use cases
- get the astronomy picture of the day for a given date
- self-host my own APOD API for reliability
- fetch NASA APOD image metadata as JSON in my app
- build a space photo widget using the NASA APOD API
- scrape the APOD website into a structured API
- serve an astronomy image API with API key support

## When to choose
- you need programmatic access to APOD content with JSON responses
- NASA's hosted instance is rate-limited or unreliable for you and you want to self-host
- you want a lightweight Flask microservice to adapt for your own astronomy data

## When to avoid
- you need APIs for other NASA datasets beyond APOD
- you need guaranteed uptime without operating your own deployment
- you need to resolve issues with APOD website content itself, which this project does not control

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: api-framework, http-server, web-scraping, parser
- domain: astronomy, apis, self-hosted
- platform: python, self-hosted
- tags: nasa, apod, astronomy, flask, microservice, space-imagery, docker, web-server

## Member repositories
- nasa/apod-api (main) score 65

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:30.411068+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:51:28.867241+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/nasa/apod-api (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:30.411068+00:00, sha 70012b8fcefc)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.