The International Space Station (ISS) which hovers about 400 kilometres above the surface of Earth recently released a video of Bengaluru captured from the flying laboratory as it passed through India. In a Twitter post, ISS stated that the space station first captured the view of the Karnataka state and then passed over to Sri Lanka. This pass was marked by clear skies on the morning of February 25.
"This @Space_Station view starts over the city of Bengaluru (also called Bangalore) which is the capital of India's southern Karnataka state - and then passes over Sri Lanka. Feb 25, 2023 06:39 UTC (you may notice this view is upside down from the usual orientation - that's because earlier today the ISS was spun around 180 degrees in preparation for the docking of Soyuz MS-23 later today)," ISS Above wrote in the caption.
Watch the video below:
In a separate post, the ISS also released a map of the cities nd towns that the space station passed over. "The pass track over India and Sri Lanka," the caption read.
Replying to a series of questions by a Twitter user, the space station also shared details of the visual. "This is from an altitude of approx 260 miles (418 kilometres) and those white spots are clouds," ISS wrote.
It also explained the details of the imaging device and said, "This camera does have the capability to zoom (80-300mm) - but it's not capable of zooming to "road level" (no camera on the ISS has that capability - although astronauts do have access to lenses up to 800mm). Depending on the city you can see the layout of roads. This is about 120x90 miles in frame size."
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"This camera is dedicated to a wider view of the earth below and is set up to match the kind of view astronauts have when looking out the cupola at the earth. Those white spots are clouds," ISS added.
Since being shared, the video has collected over 13,000 views and several likes. In the comment section, one user jokingly, "Mesmerizing beauty spots of view thank to ISS, I hope I don't notice balloon here," while another added, "Namma Bengaluru! Thank you for capturing BLR from space.. wow!! It looks so different!"
Meanwhile, for more than three decades now, the ISS has served as a centre for space research and technological advances, serving as humans' only permanent residence outside of Earth. The space station complete one orbit in about 90 minutes.
