The extraordinary image of astronauts captures the horizon of the Milky Way beyond Earth
An astronaut recently captured the image of the Earth from the International Space Station, which provides a completely different view of our world and the scenes of the scope.
Astronaut Don Pettit captured the image on January 29, 2025 about 265 miles above the Pacific Ocean. The image was taken before sunrise, so the world visible in the photos is still covered in the darkness.
In the background, the visible smell, the rectangular Milky Way is visible. Seeing the edge of the Milky Way means the photo looks at the diameter of the Milky Way.
The photo was taken with a camera using a smaller duration setting, helping Pettit capture the blur of Earth's rotation, a key background for Milky Way stars.
This photo is peculiar because of our planet – so famous for the blue and green, green clouds, but a mossy green tone. A thin white band depicts the edges of the Earth's atmosphere and the boundaries between our world and space.
Pettit is part of the NASA Expedition 72 crew, including astronauts Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague. Williams and Wilmore have a big presence in recent headlines as they are trapped in space. Their situation became a flash point recently when SpaceX boss Elon Musk claimed to have stranded astronauts for political reasons and exchanged barbs with former ISS commanders. Williams and Wilmore are currently expected to return to Earth on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in March.
The day after taking this photo, Williams and Wilmore conducted a 5.5-hour space walk. In doing so, Williams broke a woman's record of total space travel time, bringing her total to 62 hours and 6 minutes, and the previous record of 60 hours and 21 minutes. So it's not like astronauts wasting time on the ISS while waiting for their return.
Meanwhile, Pettit's photos enter the unique pantheon of images of the Earth taken from orbit. Pettit also wrote an extraordinary Earth shot in the background of December. As Pettit reported on X (formerly Twitter), he used “homemade tracking devices that allow the time required to shoot a star field to be exposed” and “stay tuned for such photos.”
From the outside, the recent Earth Surreal lenses leverage the same technology. Pettit is able to capture clear field of view of stars from low Earth orbit.
Pettit has also made headlines lately, as he shared a video where he jumped into his pants on both legs at a time. As a record, I can do the same. And I don't need zero gravity to achieve this – just ask me about triple pairs of ripped pants.
