Live video of Earth from space – as seen from the Nasa ISS live stream aboard the International Space Station.
The International Space Station – ISS – circles the earth at 240 miles above the planet, on the edge of space in low earth orbit. The station is crewed by NASA astronauts as well as Russian Cosmonauts and a mixture of Japanese, Canadian and European astronauts as well.
THIS WILL SHOW LIVE and PRE-RECORDED FOOTAGE – depending on signal from the station or if the ISS is on the night side of Earth. When the feed is live the words LIVE NOW will appear in the top left hand corner of the screen. As the Space Station passes into a period of night every 45 mins video is unavailable – during this time, and other breaks in transmission, recorded footage is shown . When back in daylight the live stream of earth will recommence.
Why can’t we see the stars?
The cameras have a low light exposure for viewing Earth in daylight, so no stars are seen on the feeds, although the Sun, Moon and Venus can be seen. The Earth or moon on these videos is many hundreds of thousands of times brighter than the brightest stars and the cameras shoot at 60 frames per second – with an exposure that allows us to get a good view of the Earth. This exposure is too short to capture stars which are incredibly faint compared to the brightness of the planet. (Its down to photography rather than conspiracy!)
What do those different screens mean?
The bottom left screen shows photos of Earth taken by ISS astronauts. The middle screen shows the current position of the Space Station (the large white H shape!) The bottom right will is a 2nd live cam which will display timelapse video when the live stream is not available.
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