Timelapse video made during ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s second mission to the International Space Station, “Alpha”. The camera is setup to take pictures at intervals of two a second, and the pictures are then edited into this video that plays at 25 pictures a second. The video is around 12 times faster than real speed.

Thomas shared this video on social media with the caption:

“This timelapse shows two full night views of our planet, but then instead of stacked like last week (and in my profile picture) the images were placed one after the other. At 25 images a second, it becomes a timelapse video and you see this wonderful result! Thanks to Melanie Cowan at ESA for putting it together. It is really cool how the same type of source material (individual long-exposure images: https://flic.kr/p/2m5knT4 ) can be made into a stacked image ( https://flic.kr/p/2m6wBAe ) or a timelapse like this! “

Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas’ time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency CNES.

Latest updates on the Alpha mission can be found via @esaspaceflight on Twitter, with more details on ESA’s exploration blog via thomaspesquet.esa.int.

Background information on the Alpha mission is available at www.esa.int/MissionAlpha with a brochure at www.esa.int/AlphaBrochure.