Hey Chicago: Looks A Little Chilly, Mocks Space Station Observers

CHICAGO — Chicagoans have seen their city captured from nearly every vantage point in an array of images that capture the city’s lakefront beauty and change of seasons from behind the lens of opportunistic photographers.

But imagine looking down on The Second City from 260 miles into space like the International Space Station did recently when it captured the Chicago as both a nocturnal masterpiece and a winter wonderland.

Photos posted to the ISS’s Twitter feed on Jan. 15 and again on Sunday captured the city’s night-time glow from space before it locked in a wintertime image after accumulating snow hit the city and its surrounding suburbs overnight Saturday.

In a tweet sent from aboard the ISS on Sunday, those aboard the space station, observers monitoring the ISS's progress mocked, “Hey Chicago! It looks a little chilly down there.”

They weren't wrong as winter settled in and dropped anywhere from 3-5 inches on the city before another round of the white stuff snarled up Monday morning's commute.

According to WTTW, the Space Station circles the earth every 90 minutes andtravels at 17,500 miles per hour.

NASA says that depending on the conditions, it is possible to see the space station from earth just like those aboard the space station can look down on Chicago. But NASA also says special equipment is needed to see the ISS streaking across the sky and even provides a website, "Spot The Station" to track when the ISS is visible from various locations and when it will be above any given location.

But regardless of how or when one might tend to spot the space station, one thing remains clear. We're not warming up anytime soon.