Earth's Timelapse
(Photo : Christina Koch/NASA)
This is how Earth looks like from space in just 11 minutes. Cristina Koch/NASA

An astonishing time-lapse captured by the International Space Station (ISS) reveals the streaking Earth's street lights, stars, and even disasters such as thunderstorms and wildfires. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the series of 400 photographs were consolidated in 11 minutes as the space station passed over Namibia towards the Red Sea. NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir posted about their adventures on the International Space Station in her official Twitter account and recently partook in the first all-women spacewalk, captured the images. 

The incredible circular beams in the image are star-trails, while the thinner dotted lines with darker orange hues are fires burning across Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thunderstorms covering central Africa are visible on the photo as well. The faint greenish–yellow color found on the upper atmosphere, which is seen above the horizon, is known as airglow. The airglow ranges between 50 and 400miles (80–645km) in the Earth's atmosphere. Justifying why the star trails in the image were focused on the left-hand corner, Matthew Osvog of NASA Johnson Space Center's ISS Flight Operations Pointing Console said in a statement that the point is "essentially normal (perpendicular)" to the ISS orbital plane. He added the port side of the vehicle is based on the spacecraft's silhouettes. Osvog said the ISS rotates in inertial space and while orbiting the Earth while the stars increase in the angular distance further away from the normal vector. The star trails eventually become large enough to "dip behind Earth's limb," as seen in the image, he added. 

First successful all-women airwalk 

Koch and her co-astronaut Jessica Meir successfully had the first all-female spacewalk outside of the International Space Station. The spacewalk officially began on Oct. 18, 7:38 a.m. ET. It lasted for seven hours and 17 minutes, ending at 2:55 p.m. ET. According to both astronauts, the spacewalk went well. Koch had been on the ISS for eight months and has taken part in several spacewalks, including the first all-woman walk. She and her colleague, Meir, shared several selfies from their experience. Koch and Meir were supposed to spend more than five hours outside the space station to change a busted power controller on the International Space Station's exterior. According to NASA, the lady astronauts spent more time on the spacewalk to finish tasks on the space station. Meir explained that it was the first all-female spacewalk since other lady astronauts had spacewalked before. Koch had her fourth spacewalk while Meir experienced it for the first time. According to a report by Good Morning America, United States President Donald Trump spoke with the astronauts during the spacewalk. Trump showed his appreciation of the two astronauts for being "very brave, brilliant people" in doing their service on the space station. 

Meir said the all-female walk was "really interesting" for them. She added they were just doing their jobs and were only tasked to do their assignments.

"We recognize that it is a historic achievement, and we want to give credit to the women who came before us. We have followed in their footsteps to get where they are today," Meir said.

The lady astronauts Koch and Meir both joined NASA in the year 2013—where NASA's astronaut class consisted of 50% female. Koch is also making history with her 300-day mission, which would be the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

Tags NASA, International Space Station, space, timelapse, all-female spacewalk

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