The East Coast at Night

The sprawl of major metropolitan areas, the lights on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and the northern aurora are all visible in this sequence of images shot by the astronauts on the International Space Station on January 29. The time-lapse is speeded up slightly more than 11x: the pass actually took 15 minutes, beginning over Central America and heading northeast. Video: NASA/Expedition 30 Astronauts (01:20)