An Astronaut’s Incredible Timelapse of Earth

Photography Tips  •  Time-lapse Photography

Earth is a beautiful place. What better way to grasp the sheer magnitude and ever-changing allure of our planet than a timelapse taken from space? European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst has done just that, creating a stunning six minute timelapse from images taken hundreds of kilometers up in the air:

Every time Gerst conducted scientific experiments during his Blue Dot Mission, he would set up cameras to take photographs  at regular intervals—one frame per second to be exact. The video is made up of 12,500 images taken during Gerst’s six-month stay on the International Space Station. The 4256 x 2832 pixel images were transformed  into an Ultra HD (4k) 3840 x 2160 pixel movie by the European Space Agency production team, running at 25 frames per second.

Before the mission in an interview with NASA, Gerst explained what he was most excited to see:

“…How will it be to look out the window and see our beautiful blue planet from outside, from this unique perspective that the International Space Station gives us, that allows us to look at it, to look at the atmosphere from the outside, to see whole continents at once without any borders that we see like when we look at the at the map in school.  The way we are used to seeing countries is with little lines of borders drawn around them.  I am very much looking forward to seeing this from the outside without those borders, just in the way that our planet exists, without any political boundaries, just the way it looks like from space.”

Gerst captured the unrestrained lands, our little world in all its perfect glory. The stunning visuals set alongside hypnotic rhythms make for a production nothing short of amazing.