NASA astronaut Doug Hurley arrived at the International Space Station with Bob Behnken aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft at the end of May 2020. The mission marked the first astronaut use of the Crew Dragon, and the first crewed launch from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.
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As well as working on various scientific experiments, Hurley has also been taking photos of some of the incredible sights viewable from the space station as it orbits Earth about 250 miles up, and posting them on his Twitter account for everyone to enjoy. We’ve picked out some of the best so far:
Doug Hurley: “I never get tired of this view from the Cupola as our orbit transitions into night.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Cloud art in the South Pacific.”Doug Hurley/NASA“The Bahamas, absolutely one of the most beautiful sights on Earth from space.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Sandstorms in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.”Doug Hurley/NASA“We flew over this Saharan dust plume today in the west central Atlantic. Amazing how large an area it covers!”Doug Hurley/NASA“Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; Shoshone, Caribou-Targhee, and Bridger-Teton National Forests, as well as the Wind River Mountains, all in one picture.”Doug Hurley/NASA“After a long haul flying northeast over the Pacific, even at orbital speeds, the first sight of land is the Baja Peninsula.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Was hoping for clear weather as we flew over England, France, and Belgium but the cloud pattern was almost as good.”Doug Hurley/NASA“I stayed up late last night to spend some time looking out the window. It was a beautiful day to see the Great Lakes and my childhood home in upstate New York.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Earth Art, southwest Libya.”Doug Hurley/NASA“The Los Angeles Basin, where @SpaceX headquarters is located and where Dragon #Endeavour was built. The marine layer receded just enough to see Santa Catalina and San Clemente Islands.”Doug Hurley/NASA
ISS astronaut’s photos capture a ‘wonderful world’
It may not be a perfect world, but if you look in the right places it’s certainly wonderful.
International Space Station (ISS) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, for one, definitely thinks so. Inspired by Louis Armstrong’s 1967 classic What a Wonderful World, the Italian space traveler recently posted four sublime Earth images alongside lyrics from the legendary track.
Astronaut’s video offers rare fish-eye view from the ISS
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has shared a rarely seen view from the orbiting outpost that shows our planet from horizon to horizon.
The video, captured by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, was made possible by recording Earth through a fish-eye lens. Covering a distance of about 4,300 miles, the video (below) starts just south of Ireland before passing over France, the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia and Sicily, the Nile, and the Red Sea before reaching the Horn of Africa.
