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Where our pictures come from.

Every picture on Skyborn is a real photograph, taken by a telescope or a satellite and published by the team that runs it. We don't generate or paint anything. We crop a picture to fit the card, and that is the only change we make.

I · THE ARCHIVES

Eight archives, and the terms of each.

The numbers are what we hold today. A weekly update adds new pictures as the archives publish them.

  • NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

    A picture a day since June 1995, chosen by two astronomers and explained in a short note. We use only the days where the picture is NASA's own.

    PICTURES
    5,777
    DATES
    1995 to 2026
    LICENSE
    PUBLIC DOMAIN
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    The credit APOD gives that day
    TERMS
    NASA's own pictures are not under copyright. APOD marks the ones that are, picture by picture. Read them
  • ESA/Hubble

    Hubble's news releases and its Picture of the Week, published by the European Space Agency.

    PICTURES
    2,812
    DATES
    1990 to 2026
    LICENSE
    CC BY 4.0
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    ESA/Hubble and the names in each release
    TERMS
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: free to use, also for things that are sold, as long as the credit goes with it. Read them
  • ESA/Webb

    Webb's news releases and its Picture of the Month, published by the European Space Agency.

    PICTURES
    307
    DATES
    2022 to 2026
    LICENSE
    CC BY 4.0
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    ESA/Webb and the names in each release
    TERMS
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, the same terms as Hubble. Read them
  • NASA Image and Video Library

    NASA's library of mission photographs, from 1970s missions to recent launches.

    PICTURES
    1,672
    DATES
    1973 to 2026
    LICENSE
    PUBLIC DOMAIN
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    The credit the library gives
    TERMS
    NASA's own pictures are not under copyright unless the library says otherwise. Read them
  • NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (the Sun)

    One picture of the Sun for each day since 2010, from the AIA camera on the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It looks in extreme ultraviolet (171 Å), where the hot gas above the surface glows.

    PICTURES
    5,918
    DATES
    2010 to 2026
    LICENSE
    PUBLIC DOMAIN
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams
    TERMS
    SDO's data rules: its images are not copyrighted. The team asks for the courtesy line. Read them
  • NASA Worldview (the Earth)

    One picture of the Earth for each day since February 2000, from the MODIS camera on NASA's Terra satellite, or Aqua on the days Terra missed.

    PICTURES
    9,653
    DATES
    2000 to 2026
    LICENSE
    PUBLIC DOMAIN
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS)
    TERMS
    NASA Earthdata: data from NASA-led missions is open for any use. GIBS asks to be acknowledged. Read them
  • USGS and NASA Landsat (name cards)

    The letters on name cards: rivers, islands and fields that happen to look like a letter, photographed by Landsat.

    PICTURES
    62
    LICENSE
    PUBLIC DOMAIN
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    USGS/NASA Landsat
    TERMS
    USGS: Landsat imagery is in the public domain. Read them
  • Copernicus Sentinel-2 (name cards)

    Ten of the name-card letters come from Europe's Sentinel-2 satellites.

    PICTURES
    10
    LICENSE
    COPERNICUS · OPEN
    CREDIT WE PRINT
    Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data
    TERMS
    The EU's legal notice for Copernicus data: free to use, also commercially, with that line printed. Read them
II · HOW WE CHOOSE

What we add on top of the license.

  1. 01

    If a photo belongs to the photographer, we don't use it.

    On 5,662 of APOD's days the picture belongs to the person who took it. They gave NASA permission to show it, not us. On those dates the card shows the Sun or the Earth from the same day instead, says so, and links to APOD so you can see the original there.

  2. 02

    The credit goes on the card and on the print.

    Hubble and Webb pictures may be used as long as they are credited, so the credit is printed on the page, on the card and on the poster. We credit public domain pictures as well, though nobody asks us to.

  3. 03

    Every picture has a record.

    For each picture we keep where it came from (the page and the file), the day we downloaded it, its license, and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the file we stored. Once a week we save a dated copy of every terms page listed above, so if a rule changes we know when.

  4. 04

    No agency logos.

    We don't use the NASA, ESA or any other agency logo, and we don't use their names to sell anything. Skyborn is independent. None of these agencies made it, endorse it or sell it.

III · SOMETHING WRONG?

If a credit is wrong, or you own the rights to a picture and want it changed or taken down, tell us through the contact form and we will fix it.