Starship Asterisk*

Flying Over the Earth at Night

Explanation: Many wonders are visible when flying over the Earth at night. A compilation of such visual spectacles was captured recently from the International Space Station (ISS) and set to rousing music. Passing below are white clouds, orange city lights, lightning flashes in thunderstorms, and dark blue seas. On the horizon is the golden haze of Earth's thin atmosphere, frequently decorated by dancing auroras as the video progresses. The green parts of auroras typically remain below the space station, but the station flies right through the red and purple auroral peaks. Solar panels of the ISS are seen around the frame edges. The ominous wave of approaching brightness at the end of each sequence is just the dawn of the sunlit half of Earth, a dawn that occurs every 90 minutes.

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Quick note for the desktop wallpaper-ers... a freaked out looking dog is what you get for today. This is normal and expected on video days. Thanks!

W-O-W-E-E-E-E Everything came together just dandy in this video. I watched it 3-times. No boring stuff in this one It's a good'n.

This is intense - thanks so much,
I saw Florida and Italy. I will watch this many more times....

Amazing!!!

I see Italy, near frame 1:08, and 2 times Orion constelation during the video.

I definitely saw Florida in the Video

video is nice but I don't like the blurred switching between scenes, that is not scientific, should just go straight to next scene in 1 frame; I think it starts somewhere over starfleet hq in San Francisco, going south over Mexico and South America

The previous page (5th March, 2012) says, "Quiz: Can you identify any of the landscapes?"

So you click the link and get...this page? Hmmm. Someone at APOD having a day off today?

What a great APOD! Many thanks....but what countries are you flying over?

Wonderful !!! I wish I was there .
In the beginning ISS is overfliyng the US Pacific coast (at 0:16 LA just under the clouds), then Gulf of California, Mexico, Panama (0:31), then Equador and Peru (Titicaca see at 0:47, just before the siurise). Afterwards I can recognize at 0:49 the southeastern coast of USA (Florida in the middle), then Keys and Bahamas.
At 1:05 the ISS is flying over South of England (almost all of Europe can be seen here), then Paris (the brightest city in the middle), Adriatic (about 1:10), Greece and Turky. At 1:16 nice view of all Eastern Mediterranean Sea with Cyprus in the middle and Egypt (Nile Delta) upper right.
Kind regards, Emil

Apod, I just wanted to say thank you for your work. Some of the images and videos you post are absolutely amazing and inspiring. I have wanted to experience space flight since I was a child, and this sort of video just makes the ache stronger.

P.s. I love how the capchta is a minor astronomy quiz!! (rearrange the letters to spell the name of a place where nothing can escape: lbcak ehlo)
p.p.s (let's just ignore hawking radiation for time time being, eh?)

1.05 to 1.20 IIS is flying from Europe to Middle East, over Austria, Balkans, Turkey, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia... Boot of Italy is clearly visible on the right at 1.08 on.

btw, is this acutal speed of IIS, or just a sequence of independent photos taken at somewhat slower pace? it is dizzingly fast, if it is true speed.

SLYMAN wrote:The previous page (5th March, 2012) says, "Quiz: Can you identify any of the landscapes?"

So you click the link and get...this page? Hmmm. Someone at APOD having a day off today?

Yes, you get this page so you can post what you've identified in the landscapes.

You could also have gotten here by clicking the "Discuss" link at the bottom of the APOD page; each day's APOD has a discussion thread devoted to it. Welcome to the discussion thread for the March 5, 2012 APOD!

And I hope people will continue to post their landscape identifications, as I couldn't pick out anything and need the help!!

haeovrn wrote:btw, is this acutal speed of IIS, or just a sequence of independent photos taken at somewhat slower pace? it is dizzingly fast, if it is true speed.

Time-lapse photography; probably one frame every 10-15 seconds.

80,,000km in 90 minutes, that's about 50,000km/hour or,is the station stationary and the earth rotating?

I see England, I see France but unfortunatley I don't see APOD displaying electricity except as clearly seen with aurorae; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzxVhLcCH8w

Fantastic scenes as seen from space. After the lights the first thing I noticed was the heavy green tint toward the top of Earths atmosphere and than the aurora! No wonder puppy was aroused!

All I could think of watching this video was how horrible the light pollution was over practically every land mass the ISS passed over. Soon the only way anyone will be able to see the night sky at all will be to go into space themselves!

Depressing, depressing, depressing!

I was really inspired by this video, even if it was uneven, as it satisfied a curiosity about the true appearance of the earth from that distance. I had gotten to view the earth from a lesser distance at a Science museum, where the subject of "light" and how it affects the earth, esp. at night, was being explored. I must have stood at that display for half an hour, just gazing at the earth. This, too, was awesome and I did see what I thought was Italy, a lot of the South Polar region, possibly Florida ... This vantage of the earth makes one realize how really small we are ...and our problems also shrink in comparison to the Universe or even just earth's atmosphere. It also reminds me how GREAT our Creator is and how much, as a friend so aptly put it, we need to get over ourselves! Thanks very much for posting this!

Wow! That's cool. Around the word in two and a half minutes. Thanks, APOD guys and of course the Astronauts

Does anyone know why most of the city lights on the left side of the video at about 0:27 - 0:30 are green??

It's simply incredible! Right soundtrack just adds some drama.

Interesting what is the altitude of somewhat greenish thin line just above Earth surface? In what altitudes these green and red colour cast Auroras occur?

Well, being a non-American I wouldn't ordinarily say this, but this video actually warrants it; that was totally AWESOME!! . . . I would think they had to put on that loud dramatic music to drown out the whooping and hollering of those lucky guys and gals on board. How could anyone not be moved by those sights? And, to cap it all, Orion rising beyond the aurora. What a ride!

zijon, the greenish line is airglow.