get_apod_metadata: Retrieve Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) images and...

In nasa: Access National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) APIs

Retrieve Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) images and metadata

Description

Queries NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) API to retrieve images and metadata between a specified start and end date. Only image media types are included.

Usage

get_apod_metadata(
  start_date,
  end_date,
  api_key = "DEMO_KEY",
  folder_name = NULL
)

Arguments

start_date	Character. Start date for the query in "YYYY-MM-DD" format.
end_date	Character. End date for the query in "YYYY-MM-DD" format.
api_key	Character. NASA API key. Defaults to "DEMO_KEY", but a personal API key is recommended.
folder_name	Character or NULL. Folder name to save images on Desktop if provided. If NULL, images are only printed and not saved.

Details

The function filters out any media types that are not images—for example, videos. It prints the image along with a truncated explanation for each entry, then returns the full metadata as a data frame.

Value

A data frame containing metadata about the APOD images (date, title, explanation, URL, and media type).

Examples

## Not run: 
# Retrieve APOD images for a date range
apod_metadata <- get_apod_metadata(
  start_date = "2024-04-01",
  end_date = "2024-04-02",
  api_key = "DEMO_KEY"
)

## End(Not run)

nasa documentation built on June 8, 2025, 11:44 a.m.