Astrophotography enthusiasts and general lovers of stunning outer-space imagery, NASA’s done you a solid. They’ve made 140,000 images, sounds, and video in their media library available – and searchable – online.
The images are downloadable and are copyright-free, so have no fear if you’d like to find a mind-boggling multicolored stellar scene and use it for, well, anything.
Of particular interest to us of the photographic community, the images even include easily viewable EXIF data. The usefulness of data contained in the imagery of course varies – a photo of a scientist taken with a DSLR on Earth is going to have more information that’s relevant to a photographer than something taken with technology that the most people will never be able to access.
[rewind:] A LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPHY TRAINING & GEAR ABOARD THE ISS WITH NASA ASTRONAUT JEFF WILLIAMS
One could spend a lot of time perusing the images contained in the site. There are a lot of things that are less visually awe-inspiring, but still of interest to people who take an interest in the science and goings on at NASA, like behind the scenes types of imagery, but there are also many, many absolutely gorgeous and fascinating scenes from space.
You can narrow your search by media type as well as by year on a timeline. Lest you think the only interest lies in looking outward, there are also plenty of images and videos looking back on our blue dot which we roam like ants to wax philosophical over. If you’ve got a little time to spend on treating your retinas, this site is absolutely worth a look.
