The astronauts up at the International Space Station are getting it all: cookies, radiation vests, and now, a cask of red wine. Unfortunately, the wine isn't for drinking: a French startup (of course it's French) called Space Cargo Unlimited wanted to see how wine ages differently in space. The wine will be sent back to Earth in a year, when experts will be able to taste the space (or not) in the red wine. Maybe space-aged wine will become a delicacy. What's next? Space cookies?
ISS
In the latest update of random things being sent to the International Space Station, the six astronauts living in the International Space Station (ISS) have been sent a cookie oven (which must be a lot more exciting than that time when they were sent cement). For the first time, astronauts will be able to bake cookies in space. I'm betting the prospect of eating fresh cookies is pretty exciting for them after months of eating packaged space food.
It's safe to say that the astronauts chilling up on the International Space Station have a pretty good view. Possible the best view of Earth (ha ha). Astronaut Christina Koch had some time on her hands, and made an incredible time lapse photo of the Earth from an 11 minute video. It's definitely not a perspective you see every day, and it is absolutely beautiful.
The International Space Station (ISS) has provided some incredible visuals as it travels around the Earth. Astronaut Christina Koch took the photos and film while aboard the ISS, and the composite is made up of over 400 images taken in the space of 11 minutes. At the time, the ISS was traveling over Namibia towards the Red Sea.
By far the best views of Earth are not stunning sunsets artificially created by Snapchat or Instagram filters. It isn't on top of a mountain looking down at the world below. It is from space. And anyone who has been there will tell you, there's nothing that comes close. IF you're still skeptical, you need to check out these time-lapse visuals taken from the International Space Station by Astronaut Nick Hague.
Though the time-lapse is a huge blow for the Flat-Earth movement, because its pretty clear from the video, its round. Maybe we can go back to deciding if the dress is blue or yellow?
Via ESATimPeake
Astronaut Tim Peake posted a time lapse video from the International Space Station (ISS) that caught a particularly striking view of lightening as it flew over Earth. According to the caption, all these lightening strikes happened in a matter of minutes:
Flying from North Africa over Turkey towards Russia in this timelapse (this is speeded up; travelling about 5500 km would take around 10-12 minutes, covered here in 30 seconds).
As the ISS orbits the Earth astronauts living in the space station have the chance to take amazing time lapse video like this and others.
If you have dreams of someday traveling into space, this video might make you drool with anticipation.
European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst put together this amazing timelapse using 12,500 images taken during his six-month Blue Dot mission aboard the International Space Station.
During his time up there, he had a number of major accomplishments. According to the ESA, these included "installing ESA's furnace that can suspend and cool molten metal in mid-air, a spacewalk to maintain and improve the Space Station, and the docking of Europe's last Automated Transfer Vehicle – the largest spacecraft to supply the research centre."
Gerst would often set up cameras to take photos while he conducted his work, and you can check out his full feed of images on his Flickr page.
Via Flickr / ESA
NASA & ESA recently announced that an American astronaut onboard the International Space Station has successfully operated a LEGO-built rover at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, using an experimental version of planet-to-planet Internet called Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol. NASA's experts say once DTN is ready for deployment, it could be used to control robots on Mars from an orbiting spacecraft or even from Earth using satellites as relay stations.
