The lucky astronauts up on the ISS have one heckuva view. These recently released videos (put together from series of still images) show the space station flying over Mexio, the central and eastern United States, and Canada and the Aurora Borealis at night.

What initially caught our eye about these vids (check 'em out down below) was the following statement from NASA:

These sequences of frames were taken at the rate of one frame per second, therefore the slower speed of the video represents nearly the true speed of the International Space Station.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I don't completely understand what NASA is saying here. The clips are at 12 frames per second, meaning that if they were played back at 1/12 speed, you'd get that one frame per second that would approximate the actual speed of the ISS. But, as they're being shown, the ISS is appearing to travel 12 times faster than it really is, at an apparent speed of nearly 210,000 MPH. Zooooom!

Oh, and if you're shopping for a new desktop background, the high-res still images that were used to make these vids are all available at the NASA source below.

NASA, via Universe Today