City lights streak by as stars twinkle in the distance in this image captured from aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
What is it?
In a photo recently captured by NASA astronaut Anil Menon from the ISS, bars of city light can be seen streaking beneath the station — 262 miles (422 kilometers) beneath, to be exact. It's just one fleeting moment, but it showcases both the unnatural beauty of the city lights as well as the natural beauty of our planet and the stars in the distance.
The city lights beam from Central Asia. They're streaking because the ISS travels at about 17,500 mph (28,000 kph), and this image was captured as a long exposure. Auroras blaze on the lefthand side of the photo, and star trails sparkle across the blackness of space in the distance.
Why is it incredible?
All in one image, we can see streaking city lights, an extension of the ISS and its hardware, colorful auroras glowing green, red and orange, and star trails speckling the cosmos.
In just this one long-exposure image, Anil has captured the beauty of Earth, its human-populated cities, the universe we inhabit and the incredible technology we have managed to create and sustain in orbit.
It also remains incredible that, while so much amazing science and technical progress happens aboard the space station, it is also a place where art like this photograph can be made. Even in space, hundreds of miles above Earth, hurtling at thousands of miles per hour, astronauts working hard to make progress for humanity are able to find brief moments of transcendent beauty.
