Google Maps: Watch the International Space Station! Yes, you can do it, via Google Street view

Using the Street View feature of Google Maps, you can now check out what is inside the International Space Station. Here is all you need to know.

Use Street View feature of Google Maps to check out the International Space Station. (Google)

Google Maps is being used by almost everyone to check directions. If you are new to a place, lost, or otherwise searching for a specific place, Google Maps can be of great help. But what if we tell you that you can even check out things far off in the sky? Yes, you can even see the International Space Station from the inside and making it all possible is the Google Street View feature in Google Maps? If you have not yet tried the Google Street View, use it now to see the International Space Station.

What is Google Street View? Well for the uninitiated, Street View, by Google Maps, is a virtual representation of our surroundings, consisting of millions of panoramic images. Street View's content comes from two sources - Google and contributors, Google said. Using the Street View feature people from anywhere can virtually explore any part of the Earth- from the outside.

So, if you are willing to visit a place but could not go due to any reason, then you can use the Street View feature to explore that place virtually. The Google Street View feature can be accessed through Google Maps. All you need to do is to just drop a pin and look around via photographs. And of course, you are not limited to the planet Earth in the process! You can look for other planets, the moon, and what not.

As already stated, you can use the feature to virtually visit the International Space Station (ISS) too. In a blog post dated July 20, 2017, Thomas Pesquet, Astronaut at the European Space Agency (ESA), who spent six months aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a flight engineer, tells us about what it is like to live on the ISS and his experience capturing Street View imagery in zero gravity.

"In the six months that I spent on the International Space Station, it was difficult to find the words or take a picture that accurately describes the feeling of being in space. Working with Google on my latest mission, I captured Street View imagery to show what the ISS looks like from the inside, and share what it's like to look down on Earth from outer space," the blog post read.

It can be known that the ISS acts as a base for space exploration—possible future missions to the Moon, Mars and asteroids—and gives us a unique perspective on Earth itself.

"Because of the particular constraints of living and working in space, it wasn't possible to collect Street View using Google's usual methods. Instead, the Street View team worked with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama to design a gravity-free method of collecting the imagery using DSLR cameras and equipment already on the ISS. Then I collected still photos in space, that were sent down to Earth where they were stitched together to create panoramic 360 degree imagery of the ISS," the astronaut said in the blog post.