Night Into Day and Into Night Again

Not only do the astronauts onboard the International Space Station see the Earth slip from night into day and into night again, but they see it 16 times in a day (well, a day being a period of 24 hours on board the ISS). Watch this mesmerizing video taken by crew of Expedition 34 on January 3, 2013:

[YouTube Clip - via Universe Today]

This fast-paced video features the ISS completing two and a half orbits around the Earth, crossing the terminator line several times in the process.

The video begins as the ISS is in darkness, and as the moon rises on the left side of the video, the ISS begins to pass over into daylight. Clouds mostly obscure the view during this first daylight pass with the exception of the Caucasus and Elburz Mountains just before the terminator.

The ISS slips back into night as the moon again rises in the left side of the video. As the Station flies back into daylight, the ISS flies over Central America, the Caribbean Sea, and Cuba and Florida before flying over the northern Atlantic Ocean. Most of Western Europe is under cloud, and the first land that can be seen is the Alps Mountains and Croatia.

The ISS then passes over the terminator line again into darkness as the moon rises in the left side of the video. As the ISS passes back over into daylight, clouds obscure most of the Earth until near the end of the video, when it passes over the Baja Peninsula and the southwestern United States.