Awesome 'This is Our Planet' ISS time-lapse video goes viral

The Internet is abuzz with a new time-lapse video titled "This is Our Planet," created by 18-year-old Tomislav Safundzic. The Croatian teenager created the video using images from the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory at the NASA-Johnson Space Center.

The video, made from ISS footage (International Space Station), offers what The Huffington Post describes as a "mind blowing" view of our home planet seen only by a select few astronauts. It takes the viewer on a fast-paced journey in orbit over Earth, showing awesome flyby views of aurora borealis over the Poles, the Pacific, city lights over the U.S. and thunderstorms with bursts of lightning over Africa, reports Mother Nature Network blog. The video, set to "Intro" by The XX, was posted by Col. Ron Garan to his Google+ page on Monday. Garan is a veteran astronaut who, according to The Huffington Post, has spent 178 days in space. Garan was also involved in making a time-lapse video from ISS footage, titled "The Journey Home." According to Mediaite, the ISS orbits the Earth at an average altitude of about 250 miles and travels at approximately 17,500 miles per hour, making 16 trips around the Earth every day. Mediaite reports that Safundzic, who says he enjoys photography and video editing, has an earlier video showing life on the ISS which Garan describes as being “about as close as we can come to show what astronauts see in space.”