Skip to main content

Take a ride on the space station from Texas to Maine

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough has posted a cool video captured from the International Space Station (ISS), where he’s been living and working since April.

The 24-second sequence shows the U.S and its major cities lit up at night as the station travels from Texas in the south to Maine in the northeast at an altitude of about 250 miles. Look carefully and you’ll spot a storm happening far below, while the end of the video features a sunrise.

Recommended Videos

“Hope you enjoy the ride from Texas to Maine as seen from Endeavour’s window on [the ] space station!” Kimbrough said in a message accompanying the video.

Hope you enjoy the ride from Texas to Maine as seen from Endeavour’s window on @Space_Station! pic.twitter.com/nwzwSoLgp5

— Shane Kimbrough (@astro_kimbrough) October 9, 2021

As Kimbrough points out, the footage was captured from a window on Endeavour, the SpaceX capsule that flew the company’s first crewed test flight in 2020 and which is now docked at the ISS after bringing the Crew-2 astronauts to space in April.

While the speed of Kimbrough’s video has been increased, the space station is still moving at a steady clip, traveling at 5 miles per second. This means it orbits our planet about once every 90 minutes, resulting in 16 orbits of Earth per day, and therefore 16 sunrises and sunsets.

Spot the station

Fancy turning the tables and watching the ISS as it passes overhead? All you need are clear skies and some patience as you wait for it to head your way. It might pass over your part of the world several times a week, or just once in a month — it all depends where you’re located. Fortunately, NASA has a notification service that alerts you to sightings the day before, so you just need to sign up, enter your ZIP code, and wait. This Digital Trends article tells you how to sign up and offers other tips on spotting the space station.

Aurora

Other spectacular sights viewable from the orbiting outpost include aurora, the beautiful phenomenon that occurs when particles from solar storms meet gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Aurora can be observed back on the ground, too, but the ISS affords a special perspective with Earth down below. Kimbrough’s colleague, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, recently posted a stunning image of what he said was one of the best auroras he’s ever seen from space.

Pesquet has been spending some of his six-month stint on the ISS capturing incredible shots of Earth, though you might be surprised at how much planning it takes to get the best images. Kimbrough, too, has posted his fair share of amazing photos.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Crew Dragon is about to fly with empty seats for the first time. Here’s why
A Falcon 9 rocket launches from California.

NASA and SpaceX are making final preparations for the Crew-9 astronaut flight to the International Space Station (ISS), which is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, September 26.

But this will be the first of SpaceX’s 13 crewed flights to the ISS since the first one in 2020 where there will be two empty seats on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. And there’s a very good reason for that. Let us explain.

Read more
Polaris Dawn’s high-speed journey home captured in photo from ISS
An illustration of how the Polaris Dawn spacewalk will look.

A remarkable photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) shows SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon capsule entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed as it returned home with four crew members on board early on Sunday morning.

Close examination of the image (top), which was captured by recent ISS arrival Don Pettit, shows a streak of light and the Crew Dragon, with some city lights visible in the background. The five-day Polaris Dawn mission carried four non-professional astronauts and performed the first-ever privately funded spacewalk while also taking humans to the furthest point from Earth since the Apollo missions five decades ago.

Read more
Watch Blue Origin’s cinematic ad for its thrilling space tourism ride
blue origin ad space tourism ride

Reserve Your Seat on New Shepard

Blue Origin has shared a cinematic video showcasing its thrilling space tourism ride on the New Shepard rocket.

Read more