Astronaut Don Pettit tweeted this photo on March 27. He wrote: "1 millionth ISS photo. Part of time lapse series. Not sure who took it, Dan Burbank or myself. We can't remember."

By Tariq MalikManaging editor

updated 1 hour 52 minutes ago

Astronauts on the International Space Station have the ultimate 24/7 view of planet Earth, and the photo album to prove it: The shutterbug astronauts recently snapped the millionth photo from the orbiting lab.

The millionth photo from the space station is, not surprisingly, a view of Earth from one of the outpost's windows as the orbiting lab sailed 240 miles (386 kilometers) above the southeastern Tasman Sea. Two Russian spacecraft are also visible, along with a green band of aurora light and the Earth in the background.

The photo features a part of the Earth that is just west of the southern tip of South Island, New Zealand, according to a NASA description. It was taken on March 7 and was released by the space agency on March 27.

American astronaut Don Pettit of NASA posted the photo online via Twitter to mark photo No. 1,000,000 from the International Space Station. It was captured as part of a time-lapse photo session of Earth, wrote Pettit, who regularly posts photos and updates from the space station under the name @Astro_Pettit.

"Illumination and the relative motion of features in the overall series of photos suggest that the view is towards the south to southeast with the approaching dawn to the left and a strong band of Aurora Australis, from left to right," NASA officials wrote. "A Russian Soyuz and a Russian Progress vehicle are seen center and right in the foreground, respectively."

But there is only one problem: The photographer is unknown.

The space station's six-man crew includes three Russians, two Americans and one Dutchman. Pettit has narrowed the photographer to either himself or NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, who commands the station's current Expedition 30 crew.

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Comments

Total 8 comments

Anonymous

the thing i dont get and cant get my head around is that every picture i see of earth,moon or any object in space there is never any stars in the background is there a reason for this? cover up of somesort?

Apr 4, 2012, 6:48 am 0 Reply
RAINSCRYPT

hehe. stellar shot.. no?

Apr 4, 2012, 10:10 am 0 Reply
sassa

No stars and the 3 pieces of international equipment seem sooo close together.
Strange picture.

Apr 4, 2012, 2:58 pm 0 Reply
TorriesD30

Noted lack of American transport vehicle docked to Space Station. President Obama’s plan for returning American Astronauts to space flight involves just what?

Apr 5, 2012, 9:25 am 0 Reply
Stan

TorriesD30: they will ride to the moon on the backs of the mislim reach out program ;-]

Apr 5, 2012, 6:14 pm 0 Reply
RAINSCRYPT

the best part of this article is if you click the link to the time lapse photo session of earth, you can get a slick star trek enterprise pizza cutter from the pop up ad.

Apr 5, 2012, 8:47 pm 0 Reply
Evan

there are no stars, because the stars arent tiny little things infront of the camera. they are huge mass object light years away. and a camera is not going to pick them up. they are too far away. we on earth see the light beams from thousands of light years away. a lot of those stars we see in the sky arent there in person anymore. the iss does have star pictures though.

Apr 6, 2012, 8:02 am 0 Reply
Anonymous

Could this picture have anything to do with the ATREX missile launch on march 27th. The Aurora Borealis at the southpole? Is it not the JETSTREAM injected with green ink from 5 rockets?

Jeremiah.

Apr 10, 2012, 4:50 am 0 Reply

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