Photographed from space, beautiful Algeria captivates astronauts

With its size as a continental country, its geographical position as a gateway to Africa, its 1,200 kilometer long coast, its immense desert expanse which covers 84% of its territory… “With its sunny sites, its mountains and its scenery”, Algeria, our beautiful countryleaves no one indifferent… Not even NASA and ISS astronauts…

The American space agency (NASA) has already published on its website several photos of the great Algerian Sahara from space. On July 5, 2021, Algeria’s independence day, the famous French cosmonaut, Thomas Pésquetshared on his Twitter account, several pictures of the bay of Algiers that he took from the International Space Station (ISS).

Samantha Cristoforetti, a “Hello Algeria! from the International Space Station

View of the Bay of Algiers from the ISS. Photo taken by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on October 6, 2022.

And in October of last year, it was around the ESA astronaut, Italian Samantha Cristoforetti, to post photos of Algeria seen from the sky. Samantha was part of the Minerva mission crew at the international space station (ISS). The Crew Dragon Freedom ship took off on April 27, 2022 and returned to earth six months later on October 14, 2022.

The astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA) took advantage of his mission to the ISS to share photos with his Twitter followers from different regions of the world. And now, on October 6, 2022, his choice fell on… Algeria. So, on this day, Samantha Cristoforetti posted three pictures from space from three different cities on the Algerian coast: Alger, Oran and Annaba.

On the small text that accompanied the tweet of the Italian cosmonaut, we could read: “ Hello Algeria! Algiers, its capital, is on the Mediterranean coast of the country, in the middle of two other coastal cities: Oran and Annaba. » Note that the ISS orbits at 408km above the Earth.

Hello #Algeria! ?? Algiers, its capital, lies on the country’s Mediterranean coast in the middle of two other coastal cities: Oran and Annaba. #MissionMinerva pic.twitter.com/SIV33W9euf

— Samantha Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) October 6, 2022

Rest, the European Space Agency (ESA) informed that “as part of her participation in the Minerva mission, Samantha has performed many European experiments and many other international experiments in microgravity. »

Before, Samantha, the Algerian landscapes had already seduced NASA, Thomas Pesquet and the Russian Sergey Ryazanskiy

Part of the Algerian Sahara photographed from the International Space Station, orbiting 409 km from Earth. ©NASA

As we mentioned above, the photos of Samantha Cristoforetti are not the first shots of Algeria taken from space. Before her, NASA and other astronauts published photographs of the Algerian coast and Sahara seen from the sky.

Thus, on July 5, 2021, as a friendly nod to Algeria, the famous French astronaut, Thomas Pésquet, shared on his Twitter account three photos of the bay of Algiers that he has taken since his mission to the ISS. In the short text that accompanies the tweet, Thomas compared the place to a perfect crescent moon: “Algiers, he wrote, from the heights of the casbah to the eastern tip of its bay. With its shape [croissant] almost perfect, it easily catches the eye“.

Algiers from the heights of the Kasbah to the eastern tip of its bay. With its almost perfect ? shape, it easily catches the eye
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Algiers in #Algeria resembles a ? and its airport runways seem to copy the same shape of the coast. https://t.co/PcJp1gW5Qh pic.twitter.com/OTI4eusZ37

— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) July 5, 2021

A little more, on February 3, 2022, it was around the Russian cosmonaut,Sergey Ryazanskiy , to share on his Facebook page a sublime spatial photo of the Algerian Sahara. In the text that accompanies his post, one can read:Algeria is a unique countryby its climate and its nature. There is a desert, mountains, lakes, sea and forests. In Algeria, the temperature can reach +50°C (in the Sahara), while in winter it snows in some cities. »

For its part, the American Space Agency, NASA, has published on its website several photos of Algeria taken from space, mainly from the Sahara, but not only. We leave you with two of the most splendid of them to conclude the article. Find all the others here.