Care to fly around the Earth, as seen from the International Space Station?
This short timelapse video was created by science educator James Drake from a series of 600 photographs available online at NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography of the Earth, and features spectacular views of city lights at night, lightning from storms, the thin line of Earth’s ionosphere, and sunrise from space. Wow.
Note that, despite the title of this post, this is not a ‘normal speed’ view from the International Space Station. Even at its velocity of approximately 28,000km/hr, the ISS takes roughly 90 minutes to do a full orbit of the Earth (around 43,000km at its orbital height).
By the way, if you want to surprise yourself, find a globe and measure 350km on the ground, then stand it up vertically. That’s the height the ISS orbits at…you’ll find it’s barely what you’d call ‘space’, it really just skims the globe.
(h/t Universe Today)
