Community Corner

Maryland Astronaut Sends First Vine From Space

There's a smartphone app for everything, including a view of the Sun you've never seen. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman has become a Twitter and Vine celebrity by sharing pictures while orbiting the Earth.

Is this far out, or is this far out? Reid Wiseman of Cockeysville sent the first Vine from the International Space Station Saturday.

Vine is a video sharing app which allows users to send six-second video of just about anything, and is often considered the β€œvideo” Twitter for its brevity in transmitting messages.

In the Vine (see embed above), Wiseman messaged β€œ1st Vine from Space! Single Earth orbit. Sun never sets flying parallel w/terminator line.”

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iO9.com reportsΒ the Vine is of a 92-minute lap the space station makes around the Earth condensed into a six-second video.

When the Space Station is aligned with the Earth’s terminator lineΒ β€”Β or day and night light boundary as defined by the Sun and Earth’s seasonal tiltΒ β€”Β theΒ station’s view of light, unlike here on Earth, never ends, according to the science and entertainment website.

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Who would’ve thought you’d need sunglasses in space?

Wiseman has also been sharing his experience with the public by means of his Twitter account (@astro_reid), according to The Baltimore Sun. Photo tweets from Wiseman began even before the launch, including selfies taken with his crewmates, German astronaut Alexander Gerst and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev.

AΒ previous Patch story reported that Wiseman, a Dulaney High School graduate of 1993, was launched into space on May 28 aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a six-month visit to the International Space Station. Wiseman is the flight engineer for the trip.

Since arriving at the International Space Station, Wiseman has been tweeting photographs of anything from him hitting the gym to stunning photographs of Earth from various angles. One of his first tweets featured a photograph of the Soyuz he was aboard with Earth in the background, captioned, β€œI can’t stop looking outside!”

Wiseman also tweeted, β€œMy parents were waving in Maryland at sunrise, so I took a picture of them.” He included a photograph of the planet half in the light.

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