The International Space Station, orbiting Earth at about 17,150 miles per hour, is currently home to seven crew members. In recent months, the astronauts and cosmonauts of Expedition 67 and 68 have taken some amazing photographs of our lovely planet as they pass overhead, and I wanted to share more of these unique views here.
The caption of this essay’s third photo previously misidentified Chengdu as Beijing.
A view of the aurora australis from beyond a section of the International Space Station as it passed just south of Australia on August 18, 2022. #
Hawaii's Big Island, seen from orbit, on March 6, 2023 #
A night view of Chengdu, China, on July 6, 2022 #
A series of swirls appears in clouds downwind of an island in the Kuril Islands on June 4, 2022. These patterns are known as "von Kármán vortices," caused by turbulent airflow as the atmosphere encounters a prominent landform, such as an island. #
An image of the branching channels and valleys of Lake Nasser, a huge reservoir in southern Egypt, photographed on June 7, 2022 #
An oblique view of the Nepalese Himalayas, seen from orbit, on February 10, 2023 #
A night view of the western Mediterranean Sea, including the lights of Algeria, Morocco, and Spain, photographed on July 28, 2022 #
ESA astronaut and Expedition 67 Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti looks out from a window on the cupola, the ISS's "window to the world," on September 12, 2022. The astronauts use the seven-windowed cupola to monitor the arrival of spaceships at the orbiting lab and view the Earth below. #
On April 28, 2022, cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev conduct a spacewalk, working on the ISS’s new European robotic arm, among other objectives. #
A view of Manhattan, from orbit, captured on August 6, 2022 #
A petrochemical facility and a solar-panel array sit among sand dunes in a desert in Bir Rebaa, Algeria, photographed on January 24, 2023 #
A look at waves on the surface of the southern Atlantic Ocean on February 24, 2023 #
Boeing’s Starliner crew ship approaches the space station on the company’s Orbital Flight Test-2 mission on May 20, 2022. #
A top-down view of California's Mount Shasta, seen from orbit on February 12, 2023 #
A view of the Manicouagan Crater and Reservoir, located primarily in Manicouagan Regional County Municipality in Quebec, Canada, on December 10, 2022. Scientists believe the crater was caused by the impact of a 5-kilometer-diameter asteroid about 215 million years ago. #
A view of the crescent moon above clouds and ocean near Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, on July 4, 2022 #
This long-exposure photograph shows the Earth 259 miles below the ISS on September 19, 2022. In the foreground is the Soyuz MS-21 crew ship docked to the Prichal docking module, which is itself attached to the Nauka multipurpose-laboratory module. #
Isla Guadalupe, off the coast of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, leaves a turbulent wake as the wind pushes clouds past, photographed on April 27, 2022. #
Moonlight is reflected by water along the Damietta branch of the Nile River, where it splits into multiple canals and fields in the central portion of the Nile Delta in Egypt. #
Typhoon Hinnamnor, seen above the Western Pacific, on August 31, 2022 #
A view of Greece and the Aegean Sea, seen from the ISS on October 2, 2022 #
The lights of Delhi, India, at night, on May 24, 2022 #
Cloud formations rise above the Pacific Ocean, viewed by an astronaut aboard the ISS on August 15, 2022. #
City lights of the western U.S. speed by, below the ISS, on July 8, 2022 #
The ISS passes above Washington, D.C., on August 9, 2022. #
Clouds catch sunlight above the southern Indian Ocean on April 19, 2022. #
Sunrise above the North Pacific on December 31, 2022, partially reflected on the underside of the ISS. #
Cosmonaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Anna Kikina points a camera out of a window inside the ISS's Zvezda service module, photographing landmarks for an Earth observation study, on January 22, 2023. #
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