With Gravity expected to pick up more than a few Oscars at tonight’s glitzy event in LA, NASA has just released a set of awesome Gravity-like shots of real astronauts going about their business high above Earth.
Titled Gravity – NASA’s Real Life Photos from Space, the stunning hi-res images cover everything from astronauts at work to the blue planet to the Hubble space telescope.
While critically acclaimed Gravity (review here), starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, presents us with some incredible views from ‘space,’ the entire movie was actually filmed at Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios in London, with UK special effects outfit Framestore taking years to create all of the highly realistic visual imagery you see in the movie.
Commenting on the film last year, Mark Uhran, who retired in 2012 as a NASA director for the International Space Station, said, “My first reaction was that the cinematography was of spectacular realism. I’ve never seen that done before.” He added, “I’ve never seen a Hollywood filmmaker actually be able to capture that clarity and resolution of the space station and shuttle.”
But to get a clearer idea of what it’s really like to be far away from terra firma, check out the gallery below, or head over to NASA’s special Flickr page showing all 31 images. Which one is your favorite?
