An astronaut just lately captured a picture of Earth from the Global Area Station that gives a wholly other view of our international and what lies past. Astronaut Don Pettit captured the picture when the ISS was once about 265 miles above the Pacific Ocean on January 29, 2025. The picture was once taken simply prior to dawn, so the portions of the arena visual within the picture are nonetheless cloaked in darkness. Within the background, the gassy, rectangular Milky Method is visual. The Milky Method is observed edge-on, which means that the picture seems to be around the galaxy’s diameter. The picture was once eager about a digital camera the usage of low gentle and lengthy period settings, serving to Pettit seize the blur of Earth’s rotation towards a targeted backdrop of Milky Method stars. The picture is extraordinary in that our planet—so famously blue and inexperienced with wisps of white clouds—is as a substitute a mossy inexperienced hue. A skinny band of white delineates the brink of the planet’s setting and the boundary between our international and area.
Pettit is a part of NASA’s Expedition 72 workforce, a bunch that incorporates astronauts Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Nick Hague. Williams and Wilmore have featured prominently in contemporary headlines as a result of they’ve been caught in area. Their scenario just lately turned into a flash level when SpaceX proprietor Elon Musk claimed the astronauts have been left stranded for political causes, and traded barbs with a former ISS commander who insisted another way. Williams and Wilmore are lately anticipated to go back to Earth in March on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The day after this picture was once taken, Williams and Wilmore performed a 5.5-hour spacewalk. In doing so, Williams broke the report for the whole spacewalk time by way of a girl, bringing her general to 62 hours and six mins—surpassing the former report of 60 hours and 21 mins. So it’s no longer just like the astronauts are losing their time within the ISS as they wait for their go back.
In the meantime, Pettit’s picture enters a novel pantheon of pictures of our planet taken from orbit. Pettit additionally authored a outstanding shot of Earth with two satellite tv for pc galaxies within the background again in December. As Pettit reported on X (previously Twitter), he took the picture the usage of a “home-made monitoring software that permits time exposures required to {photograph} famous person fields,” and to “keep tuned for extra footage like this.” Through the appearance of it, the hot surreal shot of Earth made use of the similar era. Pettit was once ready to seize a transparent view of the celebrities from low-Earth orbit. Pettit additionally made headlines just lately for sharing a video through which he jumped into his pants two legs at a time. For the report, I will do this too. And I don’t want 0 gravity to make it occur—simply ask my 3 pairs of torn pants.
