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402 days. 402 (plus or minus… mostly minus) posts.

Tag: ISS

Day 117: As the World Turns

Sometimes, when you’re running from one thing to the next and checking off to-do items only to make room for more, it’s nice to sit back, relax and watch the world turn.

From outer space.

Thank goodness for the International Space Station. Yesterday, I touted Chris Hadfield’s photos from the ISS; today, a couple of my co-workers clued me into some amazing (incredible!) ISS videography.

It looks like the stuff of Hollywood special effects, but it’s real footage of the ISS gliding smoothly around the Earth.

This first one is even in real time. It’s a night flight from January 30, 2012, running from northern Mexico to northwest New Brunswick. I can spot my city. Can you spot yours?

And this one is a soothing five-minute time-lapse of multiple different passes. The Northern Lights, bright electric flashes of thunderstorms, deserts, cityscapes, shooting stars (if you can peel your eyes away from Earth for long enough), sweeping masses of clouds, islands, fires, mountains, airports… it’s gorgeous, soothing and might choke you up a little bit.

Day 77: Two Things

Just two things to say today:

1. If I had known so many of you were going to read Dating Dancers, I might have spruced it up with some pictures of ballet shoes and old T-shirts. Lesson learned. Thank you for reading!

2. The Earth is beautiful. Both NASA and Wired Science have collections of some gorgeous spacey photos, but I recently found Chris Hadfield’s Twitter feed and am hooked. He’s a Canadian astronaut living aboard the International Space Station. The relatively low orbit of the space station enables him to see Earth on a global scale (literally) but still pick up on the details of changing climates, cities and landmarks. He shares his photos every day. If you’re a Twitterer (Tweeter? Twit?), you may want to check him out.

Australian outbackNope—this is not a Gerhard Richter painting. It’s the Australian outback from space.