Earth from Day to Night

September 3, 2010 9:39 AM

Time lapse footage of Earth taken by Don Pettit during his time on the International Space Station.

More of Oregon State University alum Don Pettit's time lapse videos are available here.

posted by gman (19 comments total)

Were those aurora? Sweet.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:41 AM on September 3, 2010

Absolutely awesome.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 9:41 AM on September 3, 2010

that gave me chills. gorgeous.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:47 AM on September 3, 2010

Wow - it would be awesome to see these as images, noting where they were over the world, and what the local time was.

Also, Don Pettit seems pretty awesome.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:48 AM on September 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

This really just underscored how low of earth orbit the ISS is in.
posted by norm at 9:49 AM on September 3, 2010

This is one of (many) things these days that makes me wish I could take it back and show it to my 12-year-old self. I love to see this stuff now, but ohhh -- it would be so fun to see it when my IBM PCjr was the hottest thing going back then.
posted by theredpen at 9:55 AM on September 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, Don Pettit seems pretty awesome.

"Pettit was able to keep up his hobby of didgeridoo-playing by constructing a didgeridoo of ice, with a mouthpiece of butter."

what what
I hate not knowing if wikipedia is messing with me or not.
posted by inigo2 at 10:09 AM on September 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I think the ice didgeridoo is real:

http://oddstruments.com/making-an-ice-didgeridoo-on-the-glaciers-of-antarctica/
posted by tresbizzare at 10:15 AM on September 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yay, Earth!
posted by inconsequentialist at 10:17 AM on September 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh my god. The Aurourae.

I just broke out weeping.
posted by notsnot at 10:19 AM on September 3, 2010

y'know, i see something like that and the first thing i think is, "the earth still looks beautiful and serene from orbit, which indicates we haven't fucked the planet up enough yet. clearly we need to be drilling for more oil."
posted by hollisimo at 10:39 AM on September 3, 2010

I think the ice didgeridoo is real:

http://oddstruments.com/making-an-ice-didgeridoo-on-the-glaciers-of-antarctica/

Thanks!

Also, does that link really have comment spam for Bing? Seriously?
posted by inigo2 at 10:45 AM on September 3, 2010

Swiftly tilting planet indeed.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:04 PM on September 3, 2010

mmmm, spacalicious!
posted by blue_beetle at 12:48 PM on September 3, 2010

Made me think of this:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."
posted by Anderson_Localized at 1:29 PM on September 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Nice. What's scary is the vast amount of black nothing beyond that delicately thin blue wrapping of the atmosphere.
posted by yoga at 1:48 PM on September 3, 2010

Did anyone else have this weird parallax time shift in their head? I mean. It just... I don't know how to describe it, but my whole sense of time was just destroyed by this. And no, I wasn't on drugs when I watched it.

The speed at which it moved and the multiple cycles of day... It just... It was so surreal to me.
posted by symbioid at 4:30 PM on September 3, 2010

yoga: "Nice. What's scary is the vast amount of black nothing beyond that delicately thin blue wrapping of the atmosphere."

Even more incentive for us to start taking care of the planet (and the air) instead of abusing it.
posted by bwg at 6:28 PM on September 3, 2010

Amazing... any clue as to what countries/cities the light emanates from?
posted by nickrussell at 6:13 AM on September 4, 2010