X

ISS astronaut shares surreal van Gogh-like view of Earth and stars

NASA's Christina Koch shares an enchanting image of the starry world outside the space station.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
Amanda Kooser
kochisscomposite
Enlarge Image
kochisscomposite

NASA astronaut Christina Koch shared this psychedelic view from the ISS.

NASA

Vincent van Gogh was onto something when he envisioned the landscape and the heavens pulled into taffy swirls of light. NASA astronaut Christina Koch shared her own artful view of a starry night with a composite image captured from the International Space Station.

"City lights, stars, lightning storms, even satellite flares. A composite of individual photos stacked on top of each other to show all the amazing things we see at night out our window," Koch tweeted on Wednesday.

Koch has a lot of time to contemplate the wonders of orbiting Earth. She's on an extended stay on the ISS that will eventually earn her the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. She's scheduled to return to the planet in February 2020 after 328 days in space.

We've seen some heart-stopping views from the ISS, including glowing auroras and dancing moonsets, but Koch's composite is a dynamic way to witness what the astronauts see. It captures time, light and movement in a single image. Van Gogh would have liked it.

Fury from afar: NASA sees violent volcanoes from space

See all photos

Originally published July 11, 8:39 a.m. PT.