July 9th, 2012
10:28 AM ET
Earth as you've never seen it before
Happy Monday! Check out This is Our Planet from Tomislav Safundžić on Vimeo (the music is "Intro" by The XX):
This time-lapse video was compiled from photos from the International Space Station.
Safundžić is an 18-year-old from Croatia, according to his Vimeo page. The photography came from the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center.
The video has become a sensation on the Web.
Astronaut Col. Ron Garan, who spent part of last year aboard the International Space Station, posted the video to his Google+ page last week with the endorsement "Well worth the 2 minutes!"
@CNNLightYears on Twitter
People in Orbit
Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov
Expedition 36 Commander
Expedition 36 Commander
Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin
Expedition 36 Flight Engineer
Expedition 36 Flight Engineer
Cosmonaut Chris Cassidy
Expedition 36 Flight Engineer
Expedition 36 Flight Engineer
Contributors
-
Elizabeth Landau
Writer/Producer -
Sophia Dengo
Senior Designer
| Part of 
Always learning. Always rediscovering. Christopher Dycha
That was very beautiful but then you stop and think of what we have done. Looking at all those lights it shows that we have made an enormous footprint on the earth and its not sustainable. What will it look like in 50 years?
That is really nice. Beautiful.
what is that blue statick shock 1:42 into the video? is it lightning?
yes that is lightning
that was just amassing that made my day thank you cnn
all praise to the most high.
Yes....something Americans...and Russians...and others....did TOGETHER. For a change. That is almost as beautiful as the visuals.
Hey, wait.. I see a sign in the corner of the picture! What! It says there is a walmart and mcdonalds coming to this location in spring of 2014. Wait, that is not fair. What about burger king and wendy's?
nices !eath and great!
beautiful...
Don't watch this if you've been drinking.
Simply amazing.
Gorgeous. We sometimes forget how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
It's sad how we have all lost ourselves. Don't you realize how we have lost our Earth? That's why it looks like a desert! The human race can/is so ingnorant to the reality they live every day. Increased hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquake, etc. I want, I want, I want! Wait until you have not! It's coming! GOD will not care who's side you were on! The result will be the same! So go ahead and kill someone and see what happens! Prove me wrong!
You my friend, have a problem......
I agree with u Tom... lol
You and those like you, my non-friend, are whats wrong with humanity.... Did the enlightenment era mean nothing? Humankind has made such great strides, only to be interrupted by you and the ignorant people you most likely vote for... Read a book about the cosmos. You're god is small time.
How about moon base?
I tried to recognized places...couldn't.
The lights look close. It's as if you can see each light individually. Fascinating.
Love the video! Allows you to let go of your worries and stresses, while you grasp the bigger picture of life and what is important in it. Get a sense of belonging to the Universe.
Yes...and I have concluded that the only important thing is fishing.
🙂
CNN: Come come.... HAve you nevdr heard of protocol? it's SEE EARTH AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HER, not it.
Some may call this being overly picky, I call it overly lazy (that's one to you: editors).
Have you never heard of spelling checkers or proper use of punctuation?
God did not create a female earth. "It" is fine!
Love the video. Very cool footage. Well done Safundžić. If it was slowed down by half, it'd be amazing. I wanted more time to process what I was seeing.... So I downloaded it and time stretched it out to 4 minutes. Even better
Now, it would be nice if God would send a hurricane, twister or some kind of plague to wipe out bigotry, racism and hate from the face of the earth! Hey, it was not my intention to say anything bad about republicans, conservatives, birthers and tea partiers!
Well speaking of hate you seem to be the one wishing for a disaster to kill people you don't agree with. Just saying.
You forgot democrats
isnt Gods creation wonderful !!! thank you God for such a beautiful place to live
Riiiiiiiiiiight, God made that. Maybe if he had help from Santa Claus, Batman, or the Easter Bunny. Not by himself though.
He did'nt need help from those guys
The world aint that beautiful when there are still republicans, conservatives, tea partiers, birthers, communists, nazzis, confederates and the likes still around!
This isn't earth. The Bible says the world is flat, fixed and rests on pillars. This is heresy. Somebody needs to get burned at the stake so that everyone else understands you don't f__k with the Word of God.
You can't be serious with this remark?
TheBob, very poorly disguised attempt at feigning to be a fundamentalist christian. You come acroos only as "TheBOOB"
Sarcasm....you are dumb.
Plus...God didn't invent electricity. People did....and spread it all around.
GOD don't create electricity its human, but who give the brain to human, who create human and the whole universe?????????
Look at how bare the Earth is. Earth's landscapes are starting to look like Mars.
Absolutely incredible video.
Hey, I can see us polluting, destroying and consuming everything on it!
Beautiful video and awesome music. It's entertaining. Thanks Tom for compiling all these pictures.
Absolutely beautiful, music and photos!
A big blue ball of grief is all I see. Pretty pictures should never be used to mask reality. Kinda like America itself.
So, you're the glass-half-empty sort, right?
So do you mean North America or South America?
Agreed. The more they zoom out, the farther from reality it gets. The more they zoom in, the uglier it gets.
You really can't open the eyes of pessimists... You can only sit back and laugh at them...
KK, I'd have to say it's the complete opposite. The further you get from the earth shows the true reality. The reality is that your reality is truly insignificant in the grand scope. We are next to nothing.
Wow what a negative person. Please don't subject us to your very narrow viewpoint of life.
You see what you see because you are not enlightened...such a childish comment can only come from a small thinker with a limited I.Q. Don't worry, your lack of intelligence is most likely genetic in nature, therefore not being your fault that you turned out the sad and pathetic way that you did.
It's a pity we're killing it.
The Earth is a jewel in the darkness of space this should be the main reason for us the children of this beautiful planet to take care of it and one day in the future reach out into the vastness of space and find other worlds like it but not as wonderful as home .
I applaud CNN for posting this piece of social media goodness front and center on the cnn.com portal.
Intro is such a great song along with the video
Yes, I love this song. I thought it was glitch mob at first, but at the end of the vid it tells you its The XX. It pops up on my pandora all the time. Amazing vid.
how beautiful it is , I wish we can keep it clean and green !
This really shows how great the High Supreme Being (God) is. He is the only one who can create these planets and arrange them in such a way that no one else could, but rather, explore and admire. Praise and Glory is to the Almighty God.
This is the reason people get mad at religious people, keep your beliefs to yourself ands top trying to let your fairy in the sky take credit for everything.
bob, couldnt just let it go huh. nothing aziz said was in a negative form, why not just let it be?
Yes,religion credits everything splendid to themselves and attribute all those bad to others.
Hey bob, I'm an agnostic, but why do you practice what you preach.
If you don't like someone else espousing their (in this case) positive religious views, why spout off your negative religious views as a means to silence them?
The belief in the lack of a God is just as much a religion as the belief in the existence of God...stating there isn't a God is no more justified or supported than the statement that there is a God.
You, sir, are the reason why people don't take kindly to people of agnostic or atheistic beliefs.
Errrr..."why don't you practice what you preach"...fingers fell behind my mind. 🙂
A-Men!
Aziz' comment gives credit to God based on no factual criteria. Tthe fact of the matter is, the God that he believes in most likely comes from books and legends that contradict most of what science has learned about the cosmos, and there is no evidence whatsoever that God created anything. He is making assertions with no evidence and it undermines everything science has achieved throughout the years.
TinKnight. You dont understand atheism at all. No rational atheist would assert that he "knows" there isnt a god, implying some sort of proof. I, as an atheist, can't disprove the existence of god and I never claim to be able to. There is however a systematic way to place the burden of proof in the right direction. I don't need to prove that there isn't a god beause....well.... I don't believe in him!
You have the observable world we live in, trees, rocks, atoms, air molecules etc. and religious people claim that there is something else that exists that can't be seen, felt... something supernatural. So lets pretend I walk up to any of you saying that I'm a world renown chemist, and I have come up with a pill that makes you ten times smarter and hand you a bottle of pills, would you take it if I seemed legitimate? Maybe I wrote an elaborate pamphlet that states all the wonders that my mystical pill can do.... No, you wouldn't. You would want to see my degree, you would want to see if it's FDA approved, because I'm asserting the pill can practically perform miracles, the burden of proof is on me.
Not one single religious person can provide any sort of tangible evidence, or proof, that supports the statement that only god can create planets and such... therefore, as a person who believes that Aziz is unjustly giving credit to for the planets and such, reserve the right say whatever the heck I want.
Please forgive the poor spelling and grammar. I am somewhat rushed at the moment.
Aziz, I don't even think you are religious. I think you're just some low wattage athiest trying to malign genuine people. Boo, shame.
Hey, Aziz what did santa bring you for x-mas?
Wow, Steve. This beautiful planet is more threatened by all the idiots like you, itiz, Bob and TinKnight who pick at each other for nothing in a snarky attempt to get the last word. I'm with you, Brother Aziz. Let's rejoice in the glory of Creation instead of spending time in useless heckling.
Georgous Video.
beautiful, all the more reason we need to continue funding U.S. space exploration
Just awesome
nice job...we live on a beautiful planet now if we can get the nitwits that run it to see that nasty cabal!
Damn! This is made by the ISS shuttle Soyuz but unfortunately I was hoping it was an American shuttle, anyway. It is so awesome to see life from space and how Earth looks like from those tiny windows on the shuttles used by the astronauts to made check-in and outs.