A beautiful and mesmerizing series of time-lapse videos taken by astronaut Ron Garan during his last weeks aboard the International Space Station, this must-see montage is made all the sweeter by a score from Peter Gabriel and an intro from Ron himself.

Ron wrote in his blog entry on FragileOasis.org:

Although the International Space Station travels at 17,500mph, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, time-lapse photography speeds up our apparent motion considerably.

The flashes of light you see throughout the video is lightning captured by the individual frames of the photography. Yet, only a small percentage of the actual lightning is captured in the imagery. While the video is sped up, I think it still accurately captures the paparazzi-look of lightening storms as we see them from space.

While still onboard the ISS, Peter Gabriel and I brainstormed some ideas for using this type of imagery to help tell the Fragile Oasis story. The possibilities are truly exciting, and I can’t wait to see where this leads. I hope it will help people follow our missions not as spectators, but as fellow crewmembers, inspired to help improve life on our planet.

Be sure to visit the site for a full description of how the photos were taken!

Video: NASA/Ron Garan. Music courtesy of Peter Gabriel and Walt Disney Records (All rights reserved.)