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Watch a year of life on the space station squeezed into 60 seconds

Most astronauts visiting the International Space Station (ISS) would probably be more than happy to spend the entirety of their six-month stay staring out of the window, the beauty of the passing scenery causing their jaw to hit the floor, or, more realistically, float around (considering the microgravity conditions).

Truth be told, astronauts are kept extremely busy during their stays on the orbiting outpost 250 miles above Earth, tasked with everything from science experiments and spacewalks to more mundane but necessary activities such as exercising and keeping the place clean.

A fun video (below) shared by the European Space Agency on Sunday attempts to show what a typical day on the ISS is like by taking clips shot over many months and squeezing them into an action-packed 60-second sequence.

🎂 Aujourd’hui, je dépasse 365 jours dans l’espace, en cumulant mes 2 missions bien sûr… Un an… !
🤯
A whole year in space over the course of the #Proxima and Alpha missions. Scenes from a typical day… in one minute 😉 #MissionAlpha pic.twitter.com/gDgF4gllSP

— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) October 9, 2021

The footage was captured during two missions undertaken by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the first called Proxima in 2016, and the Alpha mission that he’s on now.

The video offers a glimpse of what it’s like to live and work aboard the ISS, with Pesquet shown carrying out a dizzying array of tasks, some of which we’ve written about on the pages of Digital Trends.

Besides plenty of science stuff, we also see the Frenchman handling a camera as he goes about snapping more incredible photos of Earth, and playing the saxophone in the station’s Cupola module during some downtime.

There’s a clip of Pesquet suited and booted for one of many spacewalks that he’s conducted outside the ISS, while the “space boogie” that he performed earlier this year also made the cut.

A space pizza makes an appearance, too, while a beautiful (albeit very short!) star show closes the video.

For a more detailed look at life aboard the space station, check out this collection of insightful videos that features astronauts explaining everything from how to get a haircut in microgravity conditions to how to use a space toilet.

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Trevor Mogg
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