NASA on Tuesday (March 28) unveiled a new online library that assembles the agency's amazing space photos, videos and audio files into a single searchable library.
The NASA Image and Video Library, as the agency calls it, can be found at http://images.nasa.gov and consolidates space imagery from 60 different colletions into one location.
"NASA Image and Video Library allows users to search, discover and download a treasure trove of more than 140,000 NASA images, videos and audio files from across the agency's many missions in aeronautics, astrophysics, Earth science, human spaceflight, and more," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "Users can browse the agency's most recently uploaded files, as well as discover historic and the most popularly searched images, audio files and videos."
The new database allows users to embed NASA imagery in websites, includes image metadata like date, description and keywords, and offers multiple resolution sizes, NASA officials said. According to the NASA statement, other features include:
- Automatic scaling to suite the interface for mobile phones and tablets;
- EXIF/camera data that includes exposure, lens used and other information (when available from the original image);
- Easy public access to high resolution files;
- Downloadable caption files for all videos.
The new NASA archive is not meant to be a complete archive of all of the space agency imagery. But it does aim to showcase what the space agency has to offer.
"The library is not comprehensive, but rather provides the best of what NASA makes publicly available from a single point of presence on the web," NASA officials said. "Additionally, it is a living website, where new and archival images, video and audio files continually will be added."
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.