Nowadays we get such frequent updates from the crew of the ISS — their tweets, their photos, their music videos, their hygiene tips — that it's weird to recall that just a few years ago we didn't have 24/7 updates from Earth orbit. We've become, frankly, a bit spoiled. But every now and then a view of Earth from space captures our home planet in a new way, and we can experience the wonder of the Earthrise moment again — having something familiar to us made alien, so we can see it with new eyes. This latest video from the ISS crew does just that. Crew members Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio look down at various cities across the globe from the station's cupola, narrating their sightseeing. They spot cities where they once lived and cities where their families are living right now, and the end result is oddly moving.
Rick Mastracchio, left, and Mike Hopkins, right. "Looks like a beautiful day," Mastracchio says as they zoom the camera in on Houston, Texas. "I just talked to my wife at home just 15 minutes ago; she said the weather's beautiful down there." As if you needed any more proof what an amazingly connected world we live in.
