See spacewalking ISS astronauts bathe in a blazing-fast sunset
It takes mere seconds to go from light to dark outside the ISS.
NASA TV broadcast an excellent view of the sun setting on two astronauts on a spacewalk.
Sunrises and sunsets happen 16 times a day for astronauts on the International Space Station. It's just that they experience most of them from inside.
NASA astronaut Anne McClain and Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques are out on a Monday spacewalk to continue work on a project to upgrade the station's power systems.
A camera on the ISS caught some stunning footage of the pair working during a sunset. It highlights just how fast the sun dips when you're in orbit.
In one 24 hour day the space station crew sees 16 sunrises and sunsets. Watch as the sun sets on our two spacewalkers during today's spacewalk. #AskNASA | https://t.co/cBNqC61h27 pic.twitter.com/ztAVnTgpMu
— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) April 8, 2019
A NASA staffer back on Earth announces the oncoming sunset. The astronauts go from being brightly lit to being bathed in an orange-red glow before dipping into darkness. The whole process takes less than a minute. The station was passing over Afghanistan at the time.
We've seen some gorgeous ISS views of sunsets, including a "sheet of flame" in 2016 and a photo that encompassed a spacecraft, clouds and sunset at the same time in 2017.
Seeing the astronauts turn rosy red in the vacuum of space is a very different sunset experience than what we're used to down on Earth, but it's just as beautiful.
