Watching a Moonset... from Space: Video
-
Feb. 5, 2012 -- Traveling around the planet at 17,500 mph, the International Space Station (ISS) orbits Earth sixteen times each day... and witnesses the same amount of sunsets -- and moonsets -- each day as well!
This time-lapse video, created from photos taken by Expedition 30 crew members, shows one of those moonsets as seen from the ISS on Jan. 9 of this year.
2011 Supermoon: Readers' Photographs
The ISS was traveling northeast over the Atlantic Ocean at the time. The video begins as the ISS was above the Caribbean and ends over western Europe. (Cloud cover obscures any view of ocean or land.)
As the Moon passes behind the atmosphere its apparent shape distorts, becoming increasingly squashed in appearance. This is due to the refraction of light through layers of air, which get denser as altitude decreases.
A corner of a solar panel makes a brief cameo along the upper right.
BIG PIC: See the Moon Sink Into a Sea of Air
The video was assembled by the image science lab at Johnson Space Center and shared on The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
-- by Jason Major.
Video courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center.
-
our sites
-
video
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
comments ( )