NASA astronaut Don Pettit has posted another set of stunning shots, this time showing clouds as you’ve never seen them before.
Captured from the International Space Station (ISS) some 250 miles above the surface of Earth, the clouds’ unique look is due to the the station’s alignment with our planet’s day/night shadow.
Living in the Twilight Zone,” Pettit wrote in a post on social media. “Our orbit on the space station now is aligned with Earth’s day-night shadow thus we see neither full day nor full night. This is the best time to photograph clouds under low angle lighting.”
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Living in the Twilight Zone. Our orbit on @Space_Station now is aligned with Earth’s day-night shadow thus we see neither full day nor full night. This is the best time to photograph clouds under low angle lighting. pic.twitter.com/pt7BS9eZwK
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) December 8, 2024
Pettit, at 69 NASA’s oldest serving astronaut, has been dazzling his social media followers with an sublime stream of images since arriving at the the orbital outpost in September, though he’s also enjoyed sharing his space images during his previous ISS missions.
On of Pettit’s most remarkable images during his current mission shows moonlight reflecting off of a river in South America, a scene that he described as “flowing silver snakes.”
He was also quick enough to capture the sight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule hurtling back to Earth at the end of a mission, with Pettit’s image showing a dramatic streak of light as the spacecraft reentered Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the historic Polaris Dawn mission in September.
Keen to improve his images, Pettit also created what became known as the “barn door tracker.” The DIY astrophotography tool allows for the capture of sharper images of city lights at night as the device compensates for the station’s movement relative to the Earth’s surface. It can also be used for long-exposures of the night sky captured from back on terra firma, producing sharper images (without star trails) by counteracting Earth’s rotation.