Cool NASA APIs to checkout

Ask the Experts and Postman Tips
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I started to look for cool APIs to experiment and learn Postman with. I know there are many lists. I found this one on Reddit.
From there I went to NASA and registered there. What I like about the NASA API is that once you get the key and make the query, there is a great visual reward when you execute it. Amazing space related pics. What are the steps?

  1. Go to api.nasa.gov and you Browse the APIs. I selected “Astronomy Picture of the Day”, APOD.
  2. Generate an API key, which uniquely identifies you.
  3. Copy the http request, https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod?api_key=DEMO_KEY and paste it into Postman
  4. You can replace the DEMO_KEY with the actual key.
  5. Press Send and run the GET command.
  6. Voila in the result you will get the url for a beautiful image of the day. Mine is below.
    NASA APOD Space pic
    NASA APOD Space pic866×853 165 KB

There are so many variables you can play with including COUNT etc which eg if you set to 5 will show you 5 pics.
Enjoy and happy API and Space exploration.

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@cryosat-explorer-366 Wow :star_struck:!! Thanks for sharing this piece of info… Lovely picture… Will definitely try out NASA APIs :woman_astronaut:

I am moving your post to “General Discussions” category :wave:

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thanks Pricilla really appreciate it.

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Although this post is already a few days old I wanted to highlight it. That’s pretty cool stuff, @cryosat-explorer-366. I think NASA is a great resource for exploring not only space but API calls. Amazing pictures FTW! Keep it going and tell me what else you did there.

I found that although it’s not yet documented you can call against Perseverance’ library (Mars Rover launched in 2020): https://api.nasa.gov/mars-photos/api/v1/rovers/perseverance/latest_photos

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@cryosat-explorer-366 ,

This is amazing :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

I will surely give it a try.

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@cryosat-explorer-366 I’ve actually used this APOD API for a hackathon project before! It’s super awesome and pretty easy to work with-- nice find! :ringer_planet: :star:

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