As Earth
Day approaches, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have a
unique perch from which to gaze at their home planet and ponder its future.
NASA astronaut
Garrett Reisman, an Expedition 17 flight engineer living aboard the space
station, said the view of Earth from about 220 miles (354 km) up is both
tremendous and precious.
"It's
fantastically beautiful from our vantage point," said Reisman, who is making
his first spaceflight, in a recent televised interview. "The other thing that
really strikes you is how thin the atmosphere is. It's such a tiny little
sliver of a band, and you get a definite impression of the fragility of it just
by looking out the window at an angle."
NASA is
broadcasting a series of high-definition (HD) views of Earth recorded by astronauts
from the ISS and the agency's space shuttles to commemorate Earth Day on April
22, culminating with day-long HD broadcast on Tuesday.
Each
continent on Earth has its own character and hue which veteran spaceflyers can
recognize at a glance, Reisman said, adding that he hopes to gain such
expertise during his flight.
Japan's
Kaguya orbiter, currently orbiting the moon, has also beamed
back high-definition videos of a distant Earth rising and setting on the lunar
horizon. The probe carries a special high-definition camera specifically designed
to relay the stark beauty of the moon and Earth to the public, Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency officials have said.
Two of the
three space station astronauts who returned to Earth Saturday agreed with
Reisman's description of the Earth from space.
Before
leaving the station, Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and South Korean
astronaut So-yeon Yi told reporters that the Earth's beauty was one of the
highlights of their respective spaceflights. They landed
early Saturday, off-target but safely, with Russian cosmonaut Yuri
Malenchenko to end the six-month Expedition 16 mission.
"I do think
there is a sense of fragileness to our planet just because of the thinness of
the atmosphere," Whitson said. "It's an incredibly beautiful place that we live
in and this perspective that we have makes us want to cherish it even more."
Yi, a
29-year-old bioengineer who became South
Korea's first spaceflyer during her 10-day spaceflight, concurred.
"We are all
in a really beautiful world," she said. "So we should make our lives more beautiful."
Click here for a button to access NASA TV
feed on SPACE.com's ISS mission updates.
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