Astronauts Send Photos via Twitter From Space

Frank Gruber February 6, 2010 Tweet

Banff Canada from Space via Twitter & TwitPic

Just in time for the kick-off of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics we can explore this photo of Banff (above) and many others thanks to the orbiting path of International Space Station and Astronaut Souichi Noguchi. Souichi armed with  has been tweeting out photos via his TwitPic from space. Some of the images are pretty interesting and Mashable is reporting they are the first photos sent back from space. Technically, other astronauts have posted photos via Twitter before, like Mike Polansky did back in August 2009 but I guess they were not considered real-time since they used the NASA website.

I was fortunate enough to attend the first NASA Tweet-up last summer at NASA HQ in Washington, D.C. where astronauts shared some of their stories and even explained their use of various forms of technology in space including Twitter. I expect that trend to continue as NASA looks to connect real-time with its fan and follower as it explores the space above.