This is what North America looks like from about 220 miles above the Earth's surface.

The video, composed of a series of pictures taken aboard the International Space Station in January, begins as the ISS travels over the Gulf of Mexico, according to NASA. As it makes its way along the Gulf coast, lights from New Orleans and Mobile, Ala. can be seen before the Florida panhandle becomes visible.

As the ISS continues up the East Coast of the U.S., Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New York City and the Massachusetts coastline come into view. An amazing aurora borealis display becomes visible as the video comes to a close near Newfoundland, Canada.

The ISS orbits at a speed of around 17,000 miles per hour. To give you an idea of how fast that is, the still images used to make this video were taken between 12:33 a.m and 12:48 a.m. EST. Yes, that's only 15 minutes.

NASA has released many time-lapse videos taken from the ISS, but parts of this video are supposed to be more representative of the space station's speed.

From the NASA-Johnson Space Center:

Some of these sequences of frames were taken at the rate of one frame per second, therefore the slower speed of the video represents a closer resemblance to the true speed of the International Space Station than previous videos.

Interested in more views from the International Space Station? Check out the Milky Way over Africa and The Journey Home.

What else can you see in the video? Let us know in the comments.