A Category 5 hurricane can be beautiful to look at from 257 miles above the Earth.
NASA’s social media accounts this week have posted several pictures and videos of Hurricane Milton from the International Space Station.
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Timelapse flying by Hurricane Milton about 2 hours ago.
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) October 8, 2024
1/6400 sec exposure, 14mm, ISO 500, 0.5 sec interval, 30fps pic.twitter.com/p5wBlC95mx
Some of the images were taken from external cameras on the ISS, while a timelapse video was taken by astronaut Matthew Dominick, commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission.
The images from space are probably the best way to get a sense of the enormity and power of the storm, which is a near-perfect spiral with a well-defined eye at the center.
At 10:28 a.m. EDT October 7, the space station flew over Hurricane Milton and external cameras captured views of the category 5 storm, packing winds of 175 miles an hour, moving across the Gulf of Mexico toward the west coast of Florida. pic.twitter.com/MTtdUosiEc
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) October 7, 2024
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is in the process of preparing for Milton, which is expected to leave Florida’s Atlantic coast as a Category 1 hurricane.
KSC’s operating status is currently at HURCON II. That means the center is restricted, and only the most essential ride-out personnel are on site.
Milton is also why NASA is standing down from the anticipated launch of the Europa Clipper on Thursday, and the return of the Crew-8 team from the International Space Station is being pushed back to Sunday morning.
A weather briefing is planned for 11 a.m. on Friday ahead of Crew-9 undocking from the ISS.
NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than 3:05 a.m. ET Sunday, Oct. 13, for the undocking of the #Crew8 mission from @Space_Station due to weather conditions and potential impacts from Hurricane #Milton across the Florida peninsula.
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) October 7, 2024
Mission managers continue to monitor…
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