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While traveling to the International Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor, astronauts photographed the northeastern United States blanketed in fresh snow. This image, taken in early December 2002, shows the city of Baltimore, and the surrounding area. An inset shows the center of the city (rotated so north points up).

Astronauts routinely track weather phenomena on Earth, and use their onboard cameras to document their observations. Ground support in the Earth Observations Lab at the Johnson Space Center also track weather events world wide as part of the image planning activities, and alert the crews to significant events such as winter storm systems.

Astronaut photograph STS113-347-28 was taken with a 35 mm film camera and is provided by the Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth