Looking down at Earth from orbit is already mind-bending, but seeing it play out in real time makes the whole experience feel completely surreal. NASA astronaut Anil Menon recently gave people a front-row seat to that view, sharing a pair of videos recorded onboard the International Space Station (ISS) that captured a faint aurora glow and a sweeping night orbit over the planet.
He posted the clips on X, setting up a side-by-side comparison. One video was a sped-up timelapse that made the station’s trajectory look dramatic and fast-paced. The other showed the exact same run in real time, completely unedited.
That second clip is where people got hooked.
Menon noted in his post that while the unedited video looks surprisingly still – almost like a quiet, slow-motion float through deep space – the ISS is actually tearing through orbit at roughly 17,500 miles per hour (around 28,000 kilometers per hour).
That sheer disconnect between what you see and what’s actually happening sparked immediate chatter online. People in the comments couldn’t quite wrap their heads around how peaceful the footage appeared, given the terrifying speed of the station. One viewer pointed out how wild it is that something moving so fast looks like it’s barely drifting, while another mentioned that catching a full sunrise every 90 minutes has to be the ultimate reality check for just how fast these astronauts are flying around the globe.
For those unfamiliar with Menon, his path to orbit is pretty impressive in its own right. The Indian-origin astronaut, who holds both Indian and Ukrainian heritage – is an emergency room physician and a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Space Force.
NASA brought him on in the 2021 astronaut candidate class. Before that, he checked off a neurobiology degree at Harvard, earned a master’s in mechanical engineering from Stanford, and completed his medical doctorate with a specialty in emergency medicine. After wrapping up over two years of rigorous astronaut training, he officially qualified for long-haul missions on the ISS.
His recent videos serve as a really cool, grounded reminder of what living in space actually feels like. What looks to the eye like a calm, silent crawl across the night sky is actually an insane ride, with the planet whipping past underneath at nearly 28,000 km/h.