海角大神

US government agencies have sponsored air and space research for more than a century. Since the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was established in 1915, it and its successor, NASA, have racked up thousands of images of their discoveries. 聽

Many of these have become iconic. The 鈥淏lue Marble鈥� photo, taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972, is credited with helping launch the environmental movement and may rank among the most-reproduced images in history.

But the bureaucratic nature of America鈥檚 space program hasn鈥檛 always made finding these images easy. Until recently, they were scattered across more than 60 collections.

But on Tuesday, NASA unveiled its new Image and Video Library, bringing together more than 140,000 photos, videos, and audio clips 鈥渇rom across the agency鈥檚 many missions in aeronautics, astrophysics, Earth science, human spaceflight, and more,鈥� the agency said in a press release.

鈥淭he library is not comprehensive,鈥� it notes, 鈥渂ut rather provides the best of what NASA makes publicly available from a single point of presence on the web.鈥�

The Blue Marble is there, along with other familiar images like the 鈥淧ale Blue Dot鈥� (Earth as seen from the Voyager probe) and the 鈥淧illars of Creation鈥� (the Eagle Nebula, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope).

There are also more offbeat moments in the agency鈥檚 history, such as a 2009 Disney World parade featuring a Buzz Lightyear action figure that had spent time aboard the International Space Station, and somber ones, such as the investigation into the 2003 loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

All are in the public domain and available for re-use. NASA invites users to 鈥渆mbed content in their own sites and choose from multiple resolutions to download.鈥� It also provides captions and metadata for each photo, and offers a mobile version of the library for phones and tablets.

It鈥檚 not just science educators and outer-space wallpaper fans who stand to benefit from the availability of these new photos. They could also spur new questions and discoveries by ordinary citizens.聽Using publicly available聽information, 鈥渃itizen scientists鈥� have already identified a faulty sensor on the International Space Station and lent a hand in the search for Planet 9.

It鈥檚 too early to tell what discoveries await in NASA鈥檚 new library, or if would-be investigators would need to supplement its information with other kinds of information. But it鈥檚 likely to help advance a trend recently noted by Andrew Maynard, a professor at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, for The Conversation.

鈥淲ithout doubt, the movement is enabling more people than ever before to become engaged in science and to contribute toward scientific progress.鈥�