Starting back in late May of this year, astronaut Alexander Gerst spent 166 days on the International Space Station (ISS). Gerst was one of five engineers on the European Space Agency's mission Blue Dot. While on the mission, Gerst captures incredible photographs showing an astronauts view from way, way up above.
The European Space Agency compiled the five months' worth of pictures down to a 6 minute video that, while depicting space in the most accurate way, feels like science fiction to watch. The video shows natural phenomena such as auroras, lightening and other intense weather patterns like us earth-dwellers have never seen before. It even shows the most breathtaking views of lit-up cities, deep blue oceans, stars and clouds.
According to Gerst's blog, the video is compiled of 12,500 pictures and there are thousands more to be seen on his Flickr page.
Not interested in 6 minutes in space? Here are a few high points you can jump around to. At 1:35 a robotic space arm extends to grab hold of a Cygnus spacecraft and later in the video at 4:50 the same space arm releases its capture for its homeward journey (very sci-fi). The video wraps up with one last incredible aurora (one of many throughout) at 5:28. If you do watch the full six minutes, try it at full screen, in HD with no distractions. For a simple time-lapse video, it creates an incredible experience.
