The space station orbits onward

it may not sound like the most dramatic news. But as Charles Fishman points out in an outstanding new feature in the Atlantic, the International Space Station has now been occupied for nearly 5,200 days since its 2009 completion. We don't pay it much attention, but as he writes, "in the past decade, America has become a truly, permanently spacefaring nation."

The ISS hasn't produced any huge scientific discoveries or technologies — mainly, it's an exercise in figuring out how humans can adapt to living in space. In March, astronaut Scott Kelly will head to the ISS for NASA's first ever year-long mission, twice as long as most astronauts spend in orbit. The surreal sunrise timelapse above, captured by the European Space Agency's Alexander Gerst, shows what astronauts spend much of their time on the ISS staring at: the Earth, spinning swiftly underneath them day and night.