EARTH'S SPACE ORBIT - JAN 2, 2012 (Ungraded): Over Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Himalayas. Time lapse from unaltered photos taken by astronauts. HighRes NASA JPEGs muxed into PhotoJPEG video without re-encoding and post-processing. This clip retains 100% of original image quality including camera artifacts. ISS flying in Earth's orbit from southern Africa northeast to northern China. This video begins over southern Africa looking west as the ISS travels northeast up the coast. As the ISS continues northeast over the Indian Ocean, the landscape over Africa changes from green to a clay-colored orange sands of the desert. The pass continues looking over the southern half of the Arabian Peninsula and over the Middle Eastern countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The ISS passes over the snow-covered mountains of the Himalayas and finally over the Tibetan Plateau. (av22033u)

NASA Johnson Space Center