As captured from aboard the International Space Station, these star trails appear to “rain down” on the Earth due to the perspective of the rotating ISS. Below, streaks on the Earth track the Space Station’s motion in orbit around our planet, with the two axes not quite coinciding perfectly. (DON PETTIT / NASA / ISS EXPEDITION 31)

These Star Trails From The International Space Station Remind Us That We’re All One World

The view is different for each of us, but this perspective unites us all.

From anywhere on Earth, the entire sky rotates a full 360° every 24 hours.

From Earth, star trails always appear to rotate around the celestial poles. From the Northern Hemisphere, the bright star Polaris can be easily identified as the small streak located just 1 degree from the true celestial north pole. In the southern hemisphere, there is no such bright pole star. (Alan Dyer /VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A skyward-pointed camera with the shutter left open will capture curved streaks: star trails.

Above the central array of the Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array (ALMA), the southern celestial pole can be pinpointed as the point about which the other stars all appear to rotate. The length of the streaks in the sky can be used to infer the duration of this long-exposure photograph, as a 360 degree arc would correspond to a full 24 hours of rotation. (ESO/B. TAFRESHI (TWANIGHT.ORG))

From the International Space Station’s perspective, a far more spectacular view awaits.

The ISS orbits so rapidly that it completes a revolution around Earth every 90 minutes.