In his final days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in a mission that’s lasted six months, American astronaut Don Pettit has posted a sublime shot that wouldn’t look out of place in an art gallery.
The extraordinary image was captured through a window of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docked at the ISS, and shows star trails and city lights on Earth some 250 miles below.
Star trail from Crew 9 Dragon vehicle. Thanks to Babak Tafreshi for the image processing. pic.twitter.com/X6w462Wdtz
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) March 11, 2025
Pettit has shared a number of photos featuring star trails during his lastest orbital mission, but this one is definitely up there with the best of them.
At 69, Pettit is NASA’s oldest serving astronaut, and across his four orbital missions over the years, he’s become an accomplished space photographer, sharing his impressive work with his many followers on social media.
Several months ago he took time out of his busy schedule to chat with earthlings about his photography, which besides star trails also includes an image of a Crew Dragon spacecraft hurtling toward Earth, a surreal image of the Amazon basin, and a sublime shot of an aurora.
Just a few days ago, he even managed to capture the moment SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft broke up during the eighth flight test of the most powerful rocket ever to fly.
“Images from space help tell the story to people on Earth that don’t have the opportunity to go into space,” Pettit said when asked about why he loves to take photos from orbit. He added that while every image is a unique record of his orbital adventures, “the photographs help complete the story of what it means for human beings to expand into space and expand into this frontier.”
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.