Recent photos from the International Space Station’s Expedition 53 crew show wildfires burning in Southern California, expansive views of the Himalayas, cities by night and day, and colorful vistas of sites around the world.
The space station orbits around 250 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth, on a path that takes it between 51.6 degrees north and south latitude on each 90-minute trip around the planet.
These images captured from over the last three months were shared by the station’s crew on social media, or posted on NASA’s website. The captions were written by NASA, or one of the station crew members.
The spectacular aurora borealis, or the “northern lights,” over Canada is sighted from the space station near the highest point of its orbital path. The station’s main solar arrays are seen in the left foreground. Credit: NASAThis night time view of southern Europe prominently features the “boot” of Italy, the home of current Expedition 53 crew member Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. Credit: NASAMizuna is pictured being cultivated inside the Veggie facility for the Veg-03 botany experiment. Future long-duration missions will look to have crew members grow their own food, so understanding how plants respond to microgravity is an important step toward that goal. Credit: NASAFlight Engineer Joe Acaba installs botany gear for the Veggie facility to demonstrate plant growth in space for the Veg-03 experiment. Credit: NASAThe Southern California wildfires could be seen by the International Space Station crew. NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik photographed the plumes of smoke and shared the images with his followers on social media, writing, “Thank you to all the first responders, firefighters, and citizens willing to help fight these California wildfires.” Credit: NASAThe Southern California wildfires could be seen by the International Space Station crew. NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik photographed the plumes of smoke and shared the images with his followers on social media, writing, “Thank you to all the first responders, firefighters, and citizens willing to help fight these California wildfires.” Credit: NASA“Hola #Barcelona! // Good morning Barcelona!” — ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli. Credit: NASA/ESA“Whether from below, above or way above, London is a unique and captivating city.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“Haircut Saturday.” — NASA astronaut Joe Acaba“This is #Patagonia. The photos were taken as part of the Uragan experiment. According to this experiment, we taking photos the glacier of Patagonia. The scientists analyses this photos and note the dynamic of deglaciation.” — Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy“Mount #Fuji located on Honshu Island. Mount Fuji’s exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol of #Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and photographs, as well as visited by sightseers and climbers.” — Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy“When we take a picture of somewhere on Earth we are unfamiliar, @Astro_Sabot (Mark Vande Hei) shows how we look it up and learn where we were.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“Since we live in 0-G we don’t need a selfie stick to shoot the perfect crew picture.” — ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli“Some new photos of forest #fires in Southern #California…” — Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy“The caldera of Pico de Fogo pokes up through the haze on Fogo Island.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“One night in Bangkok, or at least over Bangkok, alive with fishing boats in the waters and a lightning flash to show the size of a storm.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“Good Morning Dallas & Houston. God Bless Texas!” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“The #supermoon rising over Mongolia. Good night from @Space_Station.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“Good morning from @Space_Station. Karachi, Pakistan” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“Good morning from @Space_Station. Istanbul, Turkey” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“Dominican Republic and Haiti show off their beauty in the setting sun.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“From the ground or from orbit, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is an amazingly unique feature on our planet.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik“With the blackness of space above, far away on our horizon, the impressive vertical of Mt. Everest/Sagarmatha stands out.” — NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik
Two Chinese astronauts closed out a month in space Friday with a parachute-assisted landing in northern China’s remote Inner Mongolia territory, a day after the crew departed the Tiangong 2 space lab to begin the trip home.
SpaceX launched its fifth Falcon 9 rocket in 22 days on Saturday, beginning a mission to deploy 52 more Starlink internet satellites and two rideshare payloads for Capella Space and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 6:56 p.m. EDT (2256 GMT), and SpaceX successfully landed the first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
This gallery of photos shows the rollout Tuesday of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket and Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to pad 41 at Cape Canaveral, plus additional views of the 172-foot-tall launcher standing next to the crew access tower Wednesday as teams prepared for a countdown rehearsal.
