Our Majestic Planet Spins Beneath The ISS In Another Visually Stunning Time-Lapse Video

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

You know what time it is, probably because you read the headline before clicking onto this story. It’s time for another visually spectacular trip into space with some crews of the International Space Station! This time it’s a splendor-filled time-lapse photography montage from film student and computer programmer David Peterson. If you’re not watching it in high definition on a screen the size of a refrigerator, you’re doing it wrong. Well, I guess you’re doing something right by watching it at all. Crisis averted.

The photos Peterson used came from Expeditions 29, 30, and 31, from November 2011 to September 2012. He was kind enough to cite where each shot came from, as well. As he puts it, “The goal with this sequence was to bring a bit more attention to the station itself, including the humans aboard it, particularly Don Pettit (appearing in the final shot) who took many of the sequences in this montage.” Pettit was a part of Expedition 30, and provided some truly exquisite shots here.

The track “Fill My Heart,” by trailer music-makers Two Steps From Hell, sets a nice ambiance-heavy sense of exploration and awe, particularly with so many shots in the beginning seen from the windows inside the ISS. But right after the one-minute mark is when things really get magical and I start to see water droplets hovering in the air in front of my face and I wonder if I have somehow transcended normal life and am currently residing inside the video in zero gravity. But no, it appears I’ve just had a mini-seizure and I’m hanging off the end of my bed, drooling into my own nostrils which have overflowed and are leaking past my eyeballs. To put it plainly, I was moved by this video.

Watching the Earth whip by like that, I entertain the idea that if high-def videos like this had been around when I was a kid, I might have taken my week-long interest in becoming an astronaut to a conclusion that didn’t end with me wanting to become a clown or a scoreboard operator or a ninja clown scoreboard operator. I think this video should be one of many that are required viewing for all children, to inspire them to venture out into this world and beyond.

For another awesome example of Peterson’s work, here’s the equally magnificent “All Alone in the Night,” presumably a homage to a Babylon 5 episode of the same name, which focuses on shots of the Earth in the nightime. It’s all amazing, particularly the auroras and the lightning clouds. I’m feeling another seizure coming, so just watch the video and take a moment tonight to look up into the sky and thank it for being there. Or not there.

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