Starship Asterisk*

Hi, all!

This is my first posting. And is about a suggestion of adding a permalink to the APOD page.

I am just thinking at the convenience of users that pass by the APOD page and want to comment the actual article with somebody by email, for example.
As it is today, if someone sends a normal link to the actual page, then, after 24 hours, the link is pointing to another new page.
So, the only chances of linking it correctly is going to the history page and finding the referred article...
The permalink should have the same address as the one that is going to be filed with, the following day. But it should be easier to find without searching.
Please, notice that the image is always provided with a permalink. So the article, should also.

Is it safe, secure to provide this link? I don't know.

Is it user-friendly , practical? Yes, I guess so.

Thank you, for your attention.
alberto

Alberto, if you click the < at the bottom of the APOD page to go to the previous day's APOD, and then the > to return to the current APOD, the URL will then be the permalink for the APOD you want to share. I hope this helps!

All APODs have permalinks of the form http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/apYYMMDD.html. For example today's APOD (2013 Jan 15) has a permalink of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130115.html. The default links of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html, http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/, or http://apod.nasa.gov/ will always take you to the current APOD.

Yes, there are workarounds, but they are tedious: clicking < and > (back and forward), or filling in the date by hand.
So alberto / chanio's point is still very well taken. I've thought the same thing for years, every time I do the < > trick. It is so silly. Nearly all blogs today have permalinks, and lots of sharing options also.

APOD is a fantastic resource, bringing beauty and science to a big audience. But it could be easier to share and bring even more joy and learning if we just had a convenient permalink. Without that, I'm sure lots of people share the page in a way that doesn't work for their friends.

"Check out this amazing picture of Jupiter's moon Europa!" http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
"Huh? What do you mean - that's the Pacman Nebula!"
"Huh? Wow - what happened there? [dig, dig dig] Oh - you're looking at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141128.html but I meant this one: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141127.html - the silly site doesn't let me share a permalink.....

Does someone just have to propose a minimal update to the layout template, or work with Robert and Jerry to fit it into their scripts?

The "silly site" does provide a convenient permalink that you can share. It's not that hard, really.

And there are many other ways to share it, for example on Facebook (also in Spanish, Farsi, and Arabic), Google Plus, Twitter, and email.