Time-lapse video from ISS

This is pretty spectacular footage, an amazing combination of profound human impact on the planet, and vast spaces with no detectable human impact.

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS (via Making Light)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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pgt

Very cool! Wish I could have this as a screensaver.
- http://homebiss.blogspot.com/ Saidul A Shaari
  
  pgt,
  
  There are many software that can make cool screensavers from videos such as this. Google it. :)
  - http://aqfl.net Ant
    
    What about randomized patterns? ;)
ninjapornstar

I noticed that at about 3:45-3:49 a well defined orangish squiggle appears. The same squiggle (I think) appears at 4:37-4:39. It’s something in eastern asia … I think? Anyone know?
- CGulow
  
  Rivers? Logging highways? Not sure why they would be lit or even lit bright enough to be seen from orbit.
  - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/UWO4PJ5IG35AEAHPUXGFSHEM4M Jay
    
    Ummmmm… it’s time lapse. Therefore you are seeing things in daylight and night molded together.
- http://twitter.com/garunya Chris Azure
  
  That appears to be the floodlit border between India and Pakistan
  
  ( http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=52008 )
- Ryan Black
  
  That’s the border between India and Pakistan. It uses the same type of illumination along the entire border, making it stand out.
- Long Phan
  
  Great Wall of China?
- Joshua Jordan
  
  I believe you’re seeing the Nile basin, with Cairo/the delta at top, with Isreal/Palestine/Lebanon lighting the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean.
- Culturedropout
  
  As others said, it’s the India/Pakistan border:
  
  http://g.co/maps/76nj8
- Tyson Brown
  
  It’s the border between Pakistan and India
Culturedropout

It’s images like these that really drive home for me what a thin slice of the planet we occupy. We’re like ants living in the skin of an orange. The irony of seeing this up against the various insanities that grip our species is very nearly physically painful. To think that against a backdrop this wondrous and magnificent, we kill each other every day for petty reasons. Or for no reason at all. It’s obscene. How can it even be the same species that built the space station? When aliens visit one day, will they find naked savages scrabbling in the dirt for food, while the decaying husk of the ISS tumbles overhead?
immovableobject

I say it was “other worldly” except…. it isn’t.

By the way, does anyone know who did the soundtrack music. That is some terrific ambient electronica.
Mike Polding

very beautiful! love the blue/white flashes of the lightning storms
absolutetrust

Soundtrack is Jan Jelinek
http://www.facebook.com/toshfieldsend Tosh Fieldsend

seen this before, but didn’t realise it was shot at 4k!! where’s the source video? i want to play this on a wall!
querent

We live on that planet.

Off to read about the northern lights on wikipedia.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

We watched it with this playing in the background and it flowed just beautifully. Absolutely spectacular video btw. Could play this on a loop for hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjb1FgSiWkM&feature=related
Jacob Corn

Seeing things like this makes me realize that we live in the future. That footage was taken from a space station that has been crewed for the last eleven years. Though there are empty spaces, you can see the lights of a city in almost every frame of the video. In some places, it’s cities as far as the eye can see. Wow.
ninjapornstar

Thanks, it does appear to be the indo-pak border.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Anyone wanna take a guess as tot he source of the lights in the upper right corner of the frame at the 1:40 mark…there are a few of them….satellites?
awjt

The lightning, the undulating aurorae, the faint airglow, the cities below. Oh man, trancey stuff. Time to hit the sack and dream big.
http://twitter.com/gratefulvideo gratefulvideo

A peaceful place or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
alfredo_tomato

Check out the 1:24 through 1:25 to the right of center of the frame. There appears to be a sprite shooting up from the atmosphere.
- CH
  
  Yeah, I think you are right!!! For anybody else trying to see it (it took quite a lot of going back and forth before I saw it), look at the atmosphere above the horizon, the purple part (it turns more purple at around 1:24). For me at 1:24 to 1:26 there is a orange-ish sprite shooting up (like a bullet hitting the purple part).
  
  Seriously good catch!!! I wonder if NASA has caught it? It might of course be just some video artefact, as for instance the starts look like they drag the atmosphere, too. But it sure looks like a sprite.
  
  A really nice video, thank you for posting it!!!
  - alfredo_tomato
    
    I think they are associated with thunderstorms. Not sure about that. There appears to be another around the 4:40 point. It’s even further to the right.
  - alfredo_tomato
    
    The real name for those lights are “Blue Jets.” There are “Red Sprites” too. they are associated with lightning.
MarcVader

pretty planet. so sad it’s in the way.
Ramone

Not crazy about the soundtrack but the visuals are truly stunning.
GyroMagician

Wow, I just fell in love. Where is this place? Can we go? Let’s build a rocketship and see if we can get there.

(Now picturing myself as Steve Zissou piloting said rocketship with this music playing in the cabin, crazy beautiful planet looming up in front of us…because you’re all there with me).
http://twitter.com/blindeschildpad Blinde Schildpad

Not disrespect to Pan, Bongo and Gorilla, but we’re definitely the most awesome monkeys. #AWESOMEMONKEY
http://www.commodorecrush.com/ Commodore Crush

The first fly-by over Michigan at the beginning of the video is amazing!
http://twitter.com/michaelsayyes michael b

A profoundly moving video, but the only way I could watch it is with the speakers muted. Ambient electronica? Sounded like the mating call a drugged otherworldly cricket…awesome video none the less.
cpm5280

> “taken with a special low-light 4K-camera”

AKA a Nikon D3s.
AndrewdeSouza_paNOW

love it, but i have a question to anyone who knows about optics or astronomy…

Is that how curved the Earth actually appears from that altitude or is it the lens?

t really makes the planet look like a tiny speck in that video.
Brainspore

By the looks of things most of that “profound human impact on the planet” was caused by Hal Jordan messing around with that silly ring of his.
bear

This is soo cool. i actually found this video through this epic blog: http://candlelightproject.blogspot.com/ Anyone who care about the environment would appreciate this!!
Spriggan_Prime

The way the title card is designed and fades in and out me thinks the video’s editor is a fan of House (the TV show).