Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to watch an enthralling time-lapse video of space while listening to some scintillating music? Well now’s your chance to find out. European Space Agency has this week released an astounding video which has been compiled from 12,500 photographs taken from the International Space Station ISS for viewing in just about six minutes.
Alexander Gerst, an ESA astronaut was on the ISS as a flight engineer during a six-month-long mission named Blue Dot mission when he captured these strikingly beautiful images of our home, encompassing sunrises, lightning, auroras and cities at nighttime according to a press release by the ESA. Gerst stated: “While observing from a distance, our planet is just a blue dot, more like a fragile spaceship for humankind. We must understand the universe we live in order to protect our home planet.”
Gerst is a German native who returned to Earth following the Blue Dot mission last month along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, the commander, and NASA’s astronaut Reid Wiseman. All three are being under supervised monitoring in order to see how they readapt to the gravity on Earth after spending a better part of six months in the weightlessness of space.
The American, Russian and German documented their mission together on the micro social blogging site Twitter, posting photographs of the crew and videos of floating water as well. The collaborative mission included research projects on seed growth, observation of meteors that were entering Earth’s atmosphere and studies of animal biology as well as bone and muscle physiology, according to a statement released by NASA.