I was channel surfing one night recently and was fortunate enough to come across a news story about the Commander of the International Space Station (ISS) who has a twitter account and live tweets photos of the earth from various spots around the globe from its orbit height of 230 miles. As a reference point for the distance, the state of Michigan is 240 miles across at its widest point; just ten miles more than the orbit distance of the ISS from the earth. The Space Station is up there!

The Commander

Chris Hadfield is the first Canadian Astronaut to walk in space. He lives and works on the ISS as Commander of Expedition 35. Chris began this journey to the ISS on December 19, 2012 and will be aboard the ISS for 5 months.

Image Source: Canadian Space Agency

The ISS

Some fun facts about the ISS are that it:

• is a habitable structure in low earth orbit (as mentioned, approximately 230 miles above the earth);
• travels at an average speed of 17,227 miles per hour;
• orbits the entire earth every 90 minutes or so;
• completes 15.7 orbits per day;
• has about as much living space as a 5-bedroom house;
• is a laboratory where research experiments are conducted to improve life on earth for humans.

Image Source: Canadian Space Agency

Photos of the Earth

What drew me to follow Commander Hadfield's twitter feed were the stunning photographs he takes from aboard the Space Station. Some photos are of techy things like satellites and robots coming to the ISS with supplies, which are really interesting to see. But it's the pictures of our earth that I think anyone would agree are exceptional. The view of the land and oceans from 230 miles or so above us, some of them replete with the earth's horizon visible are breathtaking.

Ireland, Wales and Mann silhouetted in the setting sun. - April 23

The Australian Outback is effortlessly crazily beautiful. April 21 2013

The Greek islands, like delicate shattered eggshell pieces. April 30, 2013

Aside from the Photos

Also present in Commander Hadfield's daily tweets are descriptions in 140 characters or less (twitter's information capacity per tweet) of the day's research projects:

And sometimes he tweets a little 411 for interested space curious folks. This tweet includes a link to a YouTube video, which the Commander also posts on a regular basis:

No time like the Present

Follow Commander Hadfield's twitter feed: @Cmdr­_Hadfield but you should hurry. The ISS is targeted to land on May 13, 2013.

References

Canadian Space Station

Twitter