Space and Physics
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The International Space Station (ISS) got a bird's eye view of Hurricane Matthew this morning from its usual hangout in low Earth orbit.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.From 400 kilometers (250 miles) above our planet, it all looks remarkably beautiful and peaceful. You can even make out the blue atmosphere faintly glowing around Earth. Although sped up x4, it provides a rare insight into the scale and formation of tropical hurricanes.
Back home, it’s not so pretty. The 230 kilometers (145 miles) per hour winds and heavy rain are currently tearing through western Haiti and eastern Cuba. Over the coming day, it will creep northwards to the Bahamas, and the chances of it reaching the US East Coast this week are rising.
This isn’t the first time the ISS has captured a hurricane from above. Just last month it managed to film a time-lapse of three hurricanes: Lester and Madeline in the Pacific Ocean and Hurricane Gaston in the Atlantic Ocean.
