A Daily Dose of Dawn

Here’s a gorgeous view from the International Space Station, taken by the Expedition 30 crew on Feb. 4, 2012 as the station passed into orbital dawn. The greens and reds of the aurora borealis shimmer above Earth’s limb beyond the Station’s solar panels as city lights shine beneath a layer of clouds. Read the rest…

“Zero G and I feel fine… Man, the view is tremendous!”

Those were the words enthusiastically said by astronaut John Glenn as he became the first American to orbit the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962. The photo above was taken by Glenn through the window of the Friendship 7 spacecraft, in which he completed three orbits before splashing down in the Atlantic. Much has changed in…

More ISS Awesomeness!

This just in: new time-lapses from the ISS, by way of the Image Science & Analysis Lab at Johnson Space Center and The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Enjoy! (Descriptions from JSC.)

An Orbital View Over Africa (VIDEO)

Can’t see the video below? Click here. One of the latest uploads to the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth site, this short-but-oh-so-sweet video shows the view from the Space Station as it passes over Africa, Madagascar and the southern Indian Ocean at night on December 29, 2011. Multiple lightning storms flash over Africa while…

A View From The Top

From the top of the atmosphere, that is! This gorgeous photo, taken from the Space Station on November 24, 2011, looks over our planet’s limb just after orbital sunset. We get a good look at cloud structures, the thin shell of our atmosphere (it’s always surprising how thin it really is), airglow, stars, and what…

ISS Performs a Lunar Pass

The right place at the right time… that’s all it took (along with some great camera skills!) for a NASA photographer at Johnson Space Center in Houston to capture some fantastic photos of the International Space Station (ISS) passing across the face of the moon! Read the rest of my article on Discovery News here.

Happy New Year from the ISS!

2011 has given us many amazing images and videos of our planet from the International Space Station, which received its last US-built components this year during the STS-133 and 134 shuttle missions. The Expedition 30 crew now aboard the ISS will ring in 2012 from orbit, and they have recorded the video above to wish…

Curiosity Launches!

Can’t see the video below? Click here. This morning at 10:02 a.m. EST, the Atlas V rocket with Mars Science Laboratory (a.k.a. Curiosity) encapsulated in its payload successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base. It was a beautiful launch and the HD video is above… enjoy! MSL successfully separated from the rocket phase 44…

ISS Docking Success!

Tonight at 11:24pm CST a TMA-22 Soyuz vehicle containing the three members of Expedition 29/30 crew successfully docked with the ISS, 248 miles above the south Pacific. It was the first docking of a manned vehicle to the ISS since the end of the shuttle program.

Earth From Orbit – in HD!

Watch this! Videographer Michael König assembled several time-lapse videos taken from the crew aboard the ISS into one long continuous video, and cleaned up the footage and added music as well. Really beautiful work on an already stunning series of videos! Needless to say this has gone the rounds on the ‘net today.

The Gift of Apollo

Just watch this: “Once upon a time we soared into the Solar System, for a few years… then we hurried back. Why? What happened? What was Apollo really about?”  – Carl Edward Sagan, 1934–1996 Nothing more need be said.

A Front Row Seat to a Spacewalk

This was just so cool I had to share. It’s a photo taken by astronaut Doug Wheelock while on EVA on November 3, 2007 with Scott Parazynski aboard the ISS. He describes the scene on his Twitpic post (in the eloquent way only Doug can): “A front-row seat to a spacewalk. I remember this moment like…