"Coming Back Down to our Fragile Oasis," featuring Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth"

A time-lapse video is about as close as we can come to show what astronauts see in space. This time-lapse video is a collaboration between images taken by Ron Garan and Mike Fossum from the International Space Station and music from Peter Gabriel. The music featured in the video is Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth".

All of the sequences for this video were shot by either Mike Fossum or Ron Garan. Although the International Space Station travels at 17,500 mph, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, time-lapse photography speeds up the apparent motion considerably.

The flashes of lightning throughout the video are captured by the individual frames of the photography. Yet, only a small percentage of the actual lightning is captured in the imagery. While the video is sped up, it still accurately captures the paparazzi-look of lightening storms as we see them from space. While still onboard the ISS, Peter Gabriel and Ron Garan brainstormed some ideas for using this type of imagery to help tell the Fragile Oasis story. The hope with this video and others like it is to help people follow the missions not as spectators, but as crewmembers, inspired to help improve life on our planet.