Explanation:
Constellations of lights sprawl across
this night scene, but they
don't belong in the skies of planet Earth.
Instead, the view looks down from the
International Space Station
as it passed over the United States along the northern
Gulf Coast on October 29.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is docked in
the foreground.
Behind its extended solar panels, some 360 kilometers below,
are the recognizable
city lights of New Orleans.
Looking east along the coast to the top of the frame finds Mobile,
Alabama while Houston city lights stand out to the west, toward the bottom.
North (left) of New Orleans, a line of lights tracing central US
highway I55 connects to Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee.
Of course,
the lights follow the population centers, but not everyone lives on
planet
Earth all the time these days.
November 2nd marked the
first decade of continuous human presence
in space on board the International Space Station.
EPOXI mission spacecraft encounters comet Hartley 2
