Astronomy Picture of the Day

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Astronomy Picture of the Day
URL http://apod.nasa.gov/
Commercial? No
Type of site Photography website
Owner NASA and MTU
Created by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell
Launched 1995-06-16

The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) website is a service provided by NASA and Michigan Technological University (MTU). According to the website, “Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.”[1] The photograph is not necessarily taken on the exact day that it is displayed, and images are sometimes repeated.[2] However, the pictures and descriptions are often related to current events in astronomy and space exploration. The images are either photographs, images taken at other wavelengths and displayed with false colors, or artist’s conceptions. Past images are stored in the APOD Archive, with the first image appearing on June 16, 1995. This initiative has received support from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and MTU. The images are sometimes authored by people or organisations outside of NASA, and therefore APOD images are often copyrighted, unlike many other NASA image galleries.[2]

APOD was presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 1996.[3] Its practice of using hypertext[2] was analysed in a paper in 2000.[4] It received a Scientific American Sci/Tech Web Award in 2001.[5] In 2002, the website was featured in an interview with Nemiroff on CNN Saturday Morning News.[6] APOD was the Featured Collection in the November 2004 issue of D-Lib Magazine.[7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Nemiroff, Robert; Jerry Bonnell (2007-04-03). APOD homepage. NASA. Retrieved on April 3, 2007.
  2. ^ a b c Nemiroff, Robert; Jerry Bonnell. APOD Frequently Asked Questions. NASA. Retrieved on April 3, 2007.
  3. ^ AAS Meeting 187th Program. American Astronomical Society (1996). Retrieved on April 3, 2007.
  4. ^ Carr, Leslie; Wendy Hall and Timothy Miles-Board (2000-02-29). Writing and Reading Hypermedia on the Web. Technical Report, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton. Retrieved on April 3, 2007.
  5. ^ Sci/Tech Web Awards 2001—Astronomy and Astrophysics. Scientific American (2001-05-14). Retrieved on April 3, 2007.
  6. ^ Saturday Morning News—Astronomy Picture of Day transcript. CNN (2002-09-21). Retrieved on April 3, 2007.
  7. ^ Wilson, Bonita (November 2004). “Featured Collection”. D-Lib Magazine 10 (11). ISSN 1082-9873. Retrieved on 2007-04-03. 

[edit] External links

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