ESA Reveals Jaw-Dropping Visuals of What New Year’s Eve Looks Like From Space

On 27 April 2022, when Italy’s first female, astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (@astrosamantha) boarded the SpaceX space capsule Freedom, she was carrying a reflex camera in her bag. During her 170-day-long stay at the International Space Station (ISS), she used her camera to snap stunning images and capture ethereal videos of our planet, becoming the first astronaut to post TikTok videos from space. A compilation of some of these clips was posted on Instagram by the European Space Agency (@europeanspaceagency). As New Year’s Eve approaches, these clips illustrate what festive decoration would look like only if planets were the ornaments, stars the glitter, and auroras the light; dazzling celestial masterpieces.

These videos were filmed when Samantha was part of the Minerva mission, named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and arts, in honor of "the sophisticated craftsmanship of the men and women all over the world who make human spaceflight possible,” per BBC. Along with Samantha, NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, and Jessica Watty Watkins were onboard the spaceship crew. During the stay, she performed sundry experiments for ESA.

In her 12-hour shift, she explored the effect of noise on hearing, the behavior of emulsions and alloy metals; she investigated how muscle tone and ovarian cells behaved in space; she installed a Robotic Arm at the ISS and also released a fleet of nanosatellites in orbit. Between these shifts, she relished blueberry cereal, and space-style coffee, answered fans' questions, and did yoga stretches, all documented in her TikToks, which have since gone viral.

The first clip in the compilation by ESA was from a TikTok titled “Farewell.” The superlunary timelapse depicts a night-time view of Earth with patches of blue, white, and green lighting up in trails of gold light which shimmer and flicker as the Earth rotates. The second footage, called “Chasing Lights,” captures the sublime beauty of aurora borealis, as appearing from the space station. The footage reveals a soft, lambent lather of neon green aurora plumbing and pulsating while the moonlight glints at the Earth’s surface, casting shadows.

“Starstruck,” another timelapse in the compilation depicts a brilliant view of stars as seen from the space station. Clusters of ultra-tiny diamond-like stars materialize in the black space while the Earth’s boundary razzle-and-dazzles with hues of golden mustard, lime yellow, and purplish green. The last clip from Samantha’s collection another night-time view of Earth, showed sparkly filigree embossing the planet’s surface gloss.

“That makes me feel so small in the best way possible,” commented @edmonds.trevor about the video compilation. @babelmallorcaofficial called the footage “sublime,” whereas @leonel.guerra.92317121 noted, “Magnificent vista!” @aaron_kazol reflected, “We're all living on a convertible that's flying through an infinite shooting gallery at 67000 mph!”

On X, @terlim5 commented about one of the clips, writing, “Everything looks so good and peaceful from there, I wish it really was down here. It would be wonderful to live up there, away from the madness.” Talking about the aurora timelapse, @sachi_assolkar said, “The beauty of this view is indescribable!” Indeed, these time-lapses are indescribable, unveiling the dark fabric of space studded with glittery elements. A visual treat for the New Year!

You can follow astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (@astrosamantha) on TikTok and European Space Agency (@europeanspaceagency) on Instagram for more dazzling videos about space travel!