🌌 Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)

Author: crissmath

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📖 Description

This project is a Streamlit web application that connects to NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) API to display breathtaking daily imagery of our universe, accompanied by scientific explanations written by astronomers.

Users can:

• 📅 Select any date to retrieve the image or video of that day.
• 📥 Download the full-resolution image if available.
• 🎥 Watch the video if the content is not an image.
• 🧠 Read the corresponding explanation with metadata.

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🚀 Technologies Used

• Python 3.10+
• Streamlit for UI and layout
• Requests for handling HTTP requests
• NASA APOD API for fetching astronomy data
• Pillow (optional) for advanced image handling

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🔧 How It Works

1. The user selects a date from a calendar input.
2. The app fetches data using the NASA APOD API (API key required).
3. If the media is an image:
   • It is displayed in a centered layout.
   • A download button is offered.
4. If the media is a video:
   • It is embedded via Streamlit’s st.video().
5. Additional metadata such as title, copyright, and explanation are shown.

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⚠️ Prerequisites

• Python installed locally
• A valid NASA API Key (Free – get it here)

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🧪 Installation & Run Locally

# Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/apod-streamlit.git
cd apod-streamlit

# (Optional) Create virtual environment
python -m venv myenv
source myenv/bin/activate  # On Windows: myenv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run the app
streamlit run main.py