Astronaut’s stunning photo shows ‘flowing silver snakes’

By Trevor Mogg Published September 24, 2024

Over his three previous missions to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronaut Don Pettit earned a reputation for having a keen eye when it comes to photographing Earth and beyond.

Since arriving at the ISS on his fourth orbital mission earlier this month, Pettit, who at 69 is NASA’s oldest active astronaut, has wasted little time in grabbing the station’s cameras to capture and share fresh dazzling imagery shot from 250 miles above Earth.

In his latest work posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, Pettit shared some sublime and highly artistic shots showing moonlight reflecting off of locations in the Amazon basin in South America.

“Somewhere over the Amazon basin, shooting photos of cities at night, I noticed the light from a near-full moon reflecting off of the meandering rainforest rivers,” Pettit wrote in the post, describing how the waterways appeared as “flowing silver snakes” and “glowing golden claws.”

Moonshine from space. Somewhere over the Amazon basin, shooting photos of cities at night, I noticed the light from a near-full moon reflecting off of the meandering rainforest rivers. In the cool moon-ish light these rivers became flowing silver snakes. When the moonlight was… pic.twitter.com/SGIUAJLhpP

— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) September 24, 2024

As usual, Pettit shared details of the equipment and camera settings that he used to grab the shots. In this case, he used a full-frame Nikon Z9 body with a 200mm lens set at f/2 and a speed of 1/320 sec, while the ISO was set at 25600. Pettit added that he processed the images in Photoshop before sharing them.

While Pettit is also working on science research aboard the ISS along with all of the other astronauts there, he also loves to head to the station’s seven-window Cupola module to capture extraordinary views of Earth using the Nikon Z9. Just recently, he shared a striking shot of London at night, and, in another remarkable image, he managed to capture the Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon capsule as it entered Earth’s atmosphere at high speed at the end of a historic five-day mission.

Pettit will be in orbit until March 2025 — ample time to create more works of art from space.