Moonset

This is a very short but interesting video of the Moon setting against the Earth; the video was taken by Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station.

Time Lapse Views of the Earth

Another great video compilation of the Earth from the International Space Station. The photos were taken by Ron Garan, Satoshi Furukawa and the crew of Expeditions 28 & 29 from August to October, 2011. Below is a list of the different sequences and the ground they cover:

1. Aurora Borealis pass over the United States at night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to central South America at night
6. Aurora Australis from the southern to the northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night pass over central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and central United States at night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at night
13. Pass over eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Middle East at night
15. Night pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia at night

Images credit: NASA; Editing: Michael König; Music: Jan Jelinek | Do Dekor, faitiche back

Flying Over the Earth

A rare time-lapse clip showing a bird’s-eye view of our planet from outer space in one minute has surfaced on the Web.

The video shows a collection of 600 images downloaded from NASA’s astronaut database and merged together by science blogger James Drake.

During the clip, storms over the Pacific Ocean, the Earth’s ionosphere (thin yellow line) and the stars in our galaxy are illustrated as the International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth.

Heavily populated urban areas can be seen beautifully lit up in the dark of night.

The 62-second montage begins over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 220 miles and continues over North and South America before sunrise near Antarctica.

Mr. Drake notes in order of appearance a few of the places that can be seen in the stunning clip, including Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, the Amazon, Peru and Chile.

The images were hand-picked from the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth which contains over a million snaps of the planet dating back to the 1960’s.

Text credit: Yahoo! News; video credit: NASA/James Drake