🛰️ Satellite Imagery Explorer
Explore Earth with NASA GIBS satellite imagery, ESRI, and live weather data
🌌 Interactive Sky Map
A real-time planetarium – explore the night sky from your location
📖 Glossary
Your guide to astronomy terminology and NASA acronyms
NASA APIs & Services
Astronomy Picture of the Day - A daily image or video of our fascinating universe, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Space Weather Database Of Notifications, Knowledge, Information - NASA's comprehensive database for space weather events including solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker - A system that tracks natural events on Earth such as wildfires, storms, and volcanic activity that may be visible from space.
Global Imagery Browse Services - NASA's system for providing satellite imagery and Earth observation data in a standardized format.
Space Weather Terms
Coronal Mass Ejection - A massive burst of solar wind and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona or being released into space. CMEs can affect Earth's magnetosphere and cause geomagnetic storms.
A sudden flash of increased brightness on the Sun, usually observed near its surface and in close proximity to a sunspot group. Flares are classified by their X-ray intensity (A, B, C, M, or X class).
Solar Flare - The abbreviation used in NASA's DONKI database for solar flare events.
Spacecraft & Stations
International Space Station - A modular space station in low Earth orbit. It's the largest human-made object in space and can be seen from Earth with the naked eye.
Astronomy Terms
A measure of the brightness of a celestial object. Lower numbers indicate brighter objects. The brightest stars have negative magnitudes.
The angle between the object and the observer's local horizon. Objects at 0° are on the horizon, while 90° is directly overhead (zenith).
The compass direction of an object, measured in degrees from north (0°) through east (90°), south (180°), and west (270°).
A celestial event where numerous meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris entering Earth's atmosphere.
The times when planets are visible in the night sky from a specific location. Visibility depends on the planet's position relative to the Sun and Earth.
Technical Terms
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing - A security feature that allows web pages to request resources from a different domain. Some APIs require server-side proxies to bypass CORS restrictions.
A free, open-source weather API that provides astronomical data including sunrise/sunset times and moon phases without requiring an API key.