Photo: iflscience.com
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman has just made the first step of Vine video-sharing into the final frontier, posting a 6-second time-lapse clip. The beautiful Vine shows a never-setting sun from 240 miles (386 kilometers) above Earth on the International Space Station and it's pretty cool.
With this small step of an astronaut, a big one for social media was made, one that officially opened the gate beyond our planet. In other words, its a crucial moment in virtual world’s history that will allow aliens to retweet or like those Bieber-ish moments celebrities have nowadays. Or who knows, maybe a new platform will soon rise as social media will switch to a higher level, literally.
Taking things seriously know, you’ll want to know this little clip is far more important than it would seem at first sight. According to the guys over at space.com, the crewmembers aboard the space station travel around Earth at 17,5000 mph (28,000 km/h) every 92 minutes, and because of that they might see up to 16 sunrises and sunsets every day. That is a lot of washing your face, isn't it?
The thing is, this time Wiseman managed to film the Sun while it doesn’t set. And that happened because the ISS was orbiting parallel with the Earth’s terminator line, also called the twilight zone.
Reid Wiseman launched for a six-month mission on May 28, aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule along with European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst of Germany and cosmonaut Maxim Suraev. They joined NASA’s Steve Swanson and cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev on the orbiting outpost as part of the Expedition 40 crew.
However, he is by far the first cosmonaut to establish an off-Earth social media presence. His crew mate Swanson recently posted the first Instagram selfie sent from space. In fact, the presence goes back in 2009, when Mike Massimino became the first astronaut to tweet from space, writing his inaugural message: “Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!”
Taking things seriously know, you’ll want to know this little clip is far more important than it would seem at first sight. According to the guys over at space.com, the crewmembers aboard the space station travel around Earth at 17,5000 mph (28,000 km/h) every 92 minutes, and because of that they might see up to 16 sunrises and sunsets every day. That is a lot of washing your face, isn't it?
The thing is, this time Wiseman managed to film the Sun while it doesn’t set. And that happened because the ISS was orbiting parallel with the Earth’s terminator line, also called the twilight zone.
Reid Wiseman launched for a six-month mission on May 28, aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule along with European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst of Germany and cosmonaut Maxim Suraev. They joined NASA’s Steve Swanson and cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev on the orbiting outpost as part of the Expedition 40 crew.
However, he is by far the first cosmonaut to establish an off-Earth social media presence. His crew mate Swanson recently posted the first Instagram selfie sent from space. In fact, the presence goes back in 2009, when Mike Massimino became the first astronaut to tweet from space, writing his inaugural message: “Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!”
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