What does a sunset look like when you’re racing through space at 8000 meters per second?

This:

Oh, I could go on and on about the curvature of the Earth, the layers of the atmosphere, the distribution of colors, how the aerosol layer is thin and glows after sunset, and what it must be like to go through 16 sunrises and sunsets every day. But you can get all that information from the NASA website. And really, the enduring nature of this picture is not what it shows, but that it was taken by a human being in space.

This is without doubt the single greatest thing on Earth, and the very reason the Internet was invented.

Sure, I came for the one about Doctor Who, but stayed for the rest of the magnificence that unfolded before me.

My hat is off to you, sir. Kudos. Kudos, indeed.

Tip o’ the brain and brain, what is brain? to BABloggee Oliver X for making my life so wonderfully better with this.

Regular readers know I’m fascinated with sky phenomena. On December 26, 2009, around 4:30 p.m. local time, I happened to look out my office window and saw a gorgeous beam of orange light shooting straight up into the sky out of the sunset. I rushed outside with my camera and got this shot of it:

[Click to embiggen.]

Isn’t that pretty? I think it’s a sun pillar, a vertical column of light caused by the setting sun’s light being reflected off of the flat surfaces of hexagonal ice crystals in the air. Given that it was several degrees below freezing when I shot this, ice crystals in the air isn’t a totally crazy idea.

However, I can’t be sure this isn’t just a run-of-the-mill crepuscular ray, just those normal beams of light you see coming from the setting Sun as it’s broken up by clouds near the horizon. But it’s rare to see a single ray like that, and much rarer to see it beaming straight up like that.

As I was taking this shot, I heard honking coming from the north that I instantly knew was coming from geese. I waited a moment, and then hundreds of geese in formation flew right into the shot! Awesome, and very scenic. I was able to get some pictures, but had to stop down the camera to get the geese, and that introduced noise (the speckly grainy look in digital images) into the sky. I fiddled with the contrast a bit to show the geese, and the picture still looks a little "grainy" but cool:

There were several V-formations of geese this size going by over the course of a minute or two, and during that time the pillar faded, as you can see in this shot. Still, what a sight!

This is the kind of thing you see when you open your eyes and look up. If we could take every human on the planet one at a time, hold their hand, and simply show them this, then I just bet this world would be a better place.

Life is beautiful. You just have to notice it.

At 9:44 a.m. local time, Atlantis touched down safely in Florida after an 11 day flight in Earth orbit, ending mission STS-129. She’ll be cleaned up for one final mission — STS-132, slated for May 2010 — before permanent retirement. There are five scheduled Shuttle flights remaining, all to the International Space Station.

In celebration of a safe voyage, I leave you with this: sunset from the ISS during STS-129.