Twitpics In Space

That's an image of the Moon and Earth sent via Twitter on February 3rd by International Space Station astronaut Jose Hernandez. I've seen plenty of official space photos were equally breathtaking, but there's something about getting them from Twitter that makes this, and other photos sent by Hernandez and fellow astronaut Souichi Noguchi, feel more intimate.

Suddenly, I'm not looking at A Very Important Photo from Space, it's a real picture taken by a real guy ... and, for a moment, the infinite out-there feels just a bit closer. Sin palabras, indeed, Astro_Jose.

Slideshow with more great pics up at Io9.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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oasisob1

This is why astronauts should be disqualified from all photography contests.
bassplayinben

A lot of NASA photos are real pictures taken by real guys. All of those shots of men on the moon, Ed White and Buzz Aldrin floating outside of Gemini capsules, men and women in EVA suits in the shuttle cargo bay, men and women crawling up the side of ISS, men and women at the controls of the most sophisticated and capable spacecraft ever built… are all real pictures taken by real guys. Twitter is only the distribution method. They are all very important photos from space.
Jetse

Great, great stuff.

Now shoot me (reality beating art), but I’ve got a story called “Twittering the Stars” (By Mari Ness) coming up in my
SHINE anthology, which is basically a series of tweets from an astronaut on a mission to the asteroid belt.

I’ll be putting up an excerpt from “Twittering the Stars” next week Friday, so the timing is *almost* perfect…;-)
Anonymous

@bassplayinben

The delivery method is the point. This picture was taken when Jose wanted, shared with us directly when Jose chose to, and viewed by us when we want to. This picture wasn’t assigned, processed, reviewed, approved, distributed, then presented.
frankieboy

It may make the “infinite out-there feel a bit closer”, but that’s an illusion. It’s still the vast, cold, uncaring universe. Not that that’s a bad thing!
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Right. And now I feel a little more connected to that vast, cold, uncaring universe.
  
  The fact that this gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling is, perhaps, it’s own problem.