Don Pettit is NASA’s oldest serving astronaut, and even at the age of 70, he’s not done yet. He’s been to orbit four times since his first voyage back in 2002, and hopes to make it back there again in the coming years.
The American astronaut’s most recent space trip saw him living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) between September 2024 and April 2025. A big part of his time aboard the orbital outpost was spent observing Earth and capturing stunning imagery of our planet and beyond.
Since returning to terra firma a few months ago, Pettit has continued to share many of the images and videos that he didn’t have a chance to post while he was in orbit.
This latest stunner shows, in Pettit’s own words, “city lights at night, streaked by orbital speeds with time exposure,” which “create a golden path seen only from space.” We can also see a docked Soyuz spacecraft in the foreground, and a Progress cargo ship, also docked, behind it.
City lights at night, streaked by orbital speeds with time exposure, create a golden path seen only from space. pic.twitter.com/z0KCfz0kBm
At night, Earth becomes speckled by the golden glow of city lights, but with the camera shutter kept open, and the space station orbiting Earth at a speed of around 17,500 mph, the lights streak across the frame to create a look that’s as unique as it is gorgeous.
During his most recent space voyage, Pettit also posted extraordinary imagery of Madagascar’s Betsiboka River estuary, aurora rippling over Earth, the Grand Canyon, and moonlight reflections. Check out this collection of some his best work.
“Images from space help tell the story to people on Earth that don’t have the opportunity to go into space,” Pettit said last year when asked why he enjoys taking photos from 250 miles up. He added that as well as capturing memories of his trips to orbit, “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.