# NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) via fittings.sh

> NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) via fittings.sh is a paid API for AI agents from fittings.sh, paid per call via x402, $0.0075/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-13).

Returns NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day — title, explanation, media URLs, and copyright — for a specific date or as a random selection.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://fittings.sh/v1/nasa/astronomy-picture
- Price: $0.0075/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-13
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/nasa-astronomy-picture-of-the-day-apod-via-fittings-sh-5c1ac9b4
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_U3ohfjZIy2fbVsd6KjuWV

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability nasa-astronomy-picture-of-the-day-apod-via-fittings-sh-5c1ac9b4
```

Example prompt: What was NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day on July 20, 1969 — give me the title, explanation, and image link?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need structured, machine-readable APOD data including explanation text, media URLs, and copyright in a single call, especially when you need historical date lookup or random image sampling via a simple paid REST API with no API key management.

## Known failure modes

- Date out of range (before 1995-06-16 or in the future) returns an error
- Count parameter outside 1-10 range is rejected
- Non-ISO date format causes a validation error
- NASA upstream API downtime may cause failures
- Payment not processed results in 402 error

## How this service works

NASA's daily astronomy image with its title, explanation, media URLs and copyright, by date or as a random selection.

## Output

Returns a JSON object (or array for random selections) containing the date, title, plain-English explanation, URL to the image or video media, high-definition URL where available, media type, and copyright attribution for the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [],
     "properties": {
      "date": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "ISO date, 1995-06-16 to today (US Eastern)"
      },
      "count": {
       "type": "number",
       "description": "1-10 random images instead of a date"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/nasa-astronomy-picture-of-the-day-apod-via-fittings-sh-5c1ac9b4/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from fittings.sh](https://www.zero.xyz/host/fittings.sh/llms.txt)