Last week, as the International Space Station was celebrating its 20 th consecutive year of spinning around the planet, the European Space Agency published a video on Youtube. It is not just any video, but the longest continuous timelapse shot in space, meant as a tribute to the construction's way of life.
The 15 minutes long clip is comprised of 21,375 images of Earth captured from the ISS by German astronaut Alexander Gerst and plays them back 12.5 times faster than the actual speed. That’s enough to send all those watching around the Earth two times over, through day and night.
Most interestingly, the ESA was careful to highlight some of the areas the ISS is flying over with text, so we all know when below lies Italy, Crimea or Beijing, for instance.
“Since the very first module Zarya launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 20 November 1998, the International Space Station has delivered a whole new perspective on this planet we call home,” says ESA in a short comment accompanying the video.
This is not the only amazing video released by the ESA over the past week. At the beginning of the weekend, incredible shots filmed by the same Gerst from the European-built Cupola module showed the launch of the Progress MS-10 cargo spacecraft on November 16 as it appeared from a height of over 400 km.
The ISS was born in 1998, with the launch of the first component. It is currently the only man-made structure in space that can support human residents for long periods of time, albeit is only the ninth to have ever been constructed.
In the 290 years in space, over 230 people went up to the ISS from 18 countries. Since November 2000, the space station has been continuously occupied by humans.
Since its completion, scientists on board the space station conducted over 2,400experiments for researchers in more than 103 countries.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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