Crew Earth Observations Videos - Northeast Asia

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 34 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken on January 3, 2013 from 11:43:46 to 15:49:31 GMT, on a pass from northwestern Australia, making two complete orbits to eastern Quebec, near the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This fast-paced video features the ISS completing two and a half orbits around the Earth, crossing the terminator line several times in the process. The video begins as the ISS is in darkness, and as the moon rises on the left side of the video, the ISS begins to pass over into daylight. Clouds mostly obscure the view during this first daylight pass with the exception of the Caucasus and Elburz Mountains just before the terminator. The ISS slips back into night as the moon again rises in the left side of the video. As the Station flies back into daylight, the ISS flies over Central America, the Caribbean Sea, and Cuba and Florida before flying over the northern Atlantic Ocean. Most of Western Europe is under cloud, and the first land that can be seen is the Alps Mountains and Croatia. The ISS then passes over the terminator line again into darkness as the moon rises in the left side of the video. As the ISS passes back over into daylight, clouds obscure most of the Earth until near the end of the video, when it passes over the Baja Peninsula and the southwestern United States.

Compiled from frames ISS034-E-16709 to ISS034-E-18545

Date posted: 2013/01/23

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 34 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken on January 4, 2013 from 05:23:00 to 05:56:16 GMT, on a pass from the border of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo to just east of Japan. This video begins as the ISS travels northeast over central Africa just after sunrise. As the ISS flies over northeastern Africa, the Nile River can be seen in a zigzag pattern across the rust-colored desert. The ISS then crosses over the Red Sea before flying over the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East region. The video ends as the ISS travels northeast over the snow-covered areas of western Russia and China.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 31 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken from May 6, 2012 from 06:28:09 to 06:41:08 GMT, on a pass from northeastern Kazakhstan to the North Pacific Ocean, east of Japan. This video features the ISS flying over northeastern Asia and over the Pacific Ocean. This pass begins over northeastern Kazakhstan, as the ISS begins traveling east and then southeast over the Baykal Lake in southeastern Russia, along with several smoke plumes from fires in the surrounding areas. The pass continues over cirrus clouds and possible smoke plumes before the ISS travels over northeastern China and ends over the North Pacific Ocean.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 2, 2012 from 05:37:31 to 06:02:03 GMT, on a pass from southern Africa northeast to northern China. This video begins over southern Africa looking west as the ISS travels northeast up the coast. As the ISS continues northeast over the Indian Ocean, the landscape over Africa changes from green to a clay-colored orange sands of the desert. The pass continues looking over the southern half of the Arabian Peninsula and over the Middle Eastern countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The ISS passes over the snow-covered mountains of the Himalayas and finally over the Tibetan Plateau.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 1, 2012 from 05:23:34 to 05:35:50 GMT, on a pass from north-central China to the North Pacific Ocean, south of the Aleutian Islands. The pass begins looking back from the ISS at the Qilian Mountains and Qinghai Lake. As the ISS continues northeast over the Gobi Desert, heavy cloud and snow cover the ground until far northeastern China. The pass ends looking back at the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula (click here to learn more about the Kamchatka Peninsula), before crossing over the Terminator line.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 02, 2012 from 06:04:20 to 06:13:14 GMT, on a pass from central Mongolia to the Sea of Okhotsk, east of Russia. This pass begins looking back from the ISS toward Mongolia and the Mongolian Plateau (most of which is snow-covered). Looking far right of track, Lake Baikal in Russia can be seen under the snow. Continuing northeast toward the Sea of Okhotsk, snow mainly covers the ground, except where mountain peaks show through.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken January 02, 2012 from 10:56:14 to 11:17:54 GMT, on a pass from northeastern China to the Coral Sea, just east of Australia. The pass begins looking back from the ISS, just northwest of Beijing. As the ISS travels southeast, it passes over Beijing and the Bohai Sea and travels toward Korea (right side of video). On the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang and South Korea's capital city of Seoul are brightly lit. As the pass continues, the southern half of Japan is seen along with a couple of islands in the South China Sea. The ISS continues traveling southeast over the Philippine Sea toward Australia.

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the International Space Station. The sequence of shots was taken October 20, 2011 from 17:48:40 to 18:05:17 GMT, on a descending pass from eastern China to western New Guinea, and rounds out to an ascending pass just as the video ends north of Australia. As the pass begins southeastward towards the South China Sea, the first noticably-lit area is that of Hong Kong and Macau. The island of Taiwan can also be easily seen left of track. The ISS passes over the South China Sea towards the Philippines, which have some cloud cover and storms. Finally, the pass ends just north of Australia, where the Yorke Peninsula can be seen as a dark, rusty color protruding into the water.

This video over Southeastern Asia was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the International Space Station. This sequence of shots was taken October 7, 2011 from 12:41:10 to 12:50:46 GMT, on an ascending pass from the island of Java to northeast of Japan. Clouds fill most of the sky until the island of Japan approaches near the end of the sequence. Tokyo is brightly visible on the eastern-most side of the island.

This pass begins over Mongolia, looking out west towards the Pacific Ocean, China, and Japan. As the video progresses, you can see major cities along the coast and the Japanese islands on the Philippine Sea. The island of Guam can be seen further down the pass into the Philippine Sea, and the pass ends just to the east of New Zealand. A lightning storm can be seen as light pulses near the end of the video.