Recent missions per month for Artemis II astronauts was memorable, inspiring, and scientifically important to so many reasons. It also brought us a wealth of new images and videos ready to be added to NASA’s vast library of content.
Think about it this picture of the Earth from more than 250,000 miles, for example, taken from the other side of the moon. Or these widely shared photos of our home planet from inside the Orion capsule, which was taken using iPhone 17 Pro Max phones. Truly out of this world, but captured using a device most of us have in our pockets.
These images have surfaced on social media, but what you may not know is that NASA is making its vast library of images and videos available for anyone to dig through, marvel at, and share again. Because NASA is funded by the US government, most of its published media is released to the public.
That is the good news. The bad news is that it is not immediately obvious where this library is and how you can access it.
If you’re ready to browse decades of photos and video clips from NASA—from giant star clusters to spacesuit designs—here’s how to get started. A word of warning though: It’s easy to get lost for hours in these gatherings.
NASA Photo and Video Library
Let’s start with the biggest resource: The NASA Photo and Video Library. This is where you’ll find just about every photo, video, and audio clip that NASA wants to share, from astronaut photos and space missions to planet images and satellite images. By default, you can see the newest downloads first, but you can also click Trending and Popular see frequently viewed content from over the years.
Click on the photo or video here to get more information about it, including what it shows and when it was captured. Some of the captions here are short essays, and most of the content on this portal comes with EXIF data included, which will interest photographers (or anyone who wants to know what photos were captured with the iPhone 17 Pro Max).
While this resource is great, it’s also difficult to sift through, unless you know what you’re looking for. You basically rely on the search box at the top, and common keywords can return dozens and dozens of pages of results. Try to be as specific as possible with the search terms. Also, use keywords on each photo and video listing to find related content.
NASA images
In addition to the NASA Image and Video library page, there is also NASA images—which includes a link to the Photo and Video Library. (Those who are behind, try to keep up). NASA Photos isn’t as comprehensive as the Photo and Video Library, but it’s well organized, and it’s easy to find recent content here.
