25 years ago, a NASA astronaut witnessed the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks from space and captured a haunting photograph of smoke rising over New York City

In one of the most shocking tragedies of the past three decades, NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson witnessed the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from space on September 11, 2001. Culbertson, who was the commander of the International Space Station (ISS), watched from roughly 250 miles above Earth as a massive plume of smoke spread across New York City after the World Trade Center towers were attacked. He captured the haunting scene with a camera, creating one of the most remarkable photographs of the 9/11 aftermath.

A VIEW OF 9/11 ATTACKS FROM SPACE

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes. Two were flown into the 110-story World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan, causing both buildings to eventually collapse. A third plane struck the Pentagon, while passengers aboard the fourth fought back against the hijackers before the aircraft crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In total, 2,977 people were killed in the attacks, according to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Culbertson was aboard the ISS when he learned what had happened. When the station passed over New York, he photographed the thick smoke stretching away from Manhattan.

THE HAUNTING IMAGE CULBERTSON CAPTURED

The photograph contains a striking detail that Culbertson later described as an 'odd bloom' near the base of the smoke column. He believed this suggested the image was taken around the time of, or shortly after, the collapse of the second tower. In the days afterward, Culbertson wrote about the emotional impact of watching his home country from orbit. He described seeing smoke rise from what he called 'wounds' in his own country and said the experience was deeply jolting. According to Live Science, the tragedy became even more personal when Culbertson learned that Charles 'Chic' Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, had been his former flight-school classmate.

A SILENT AMERICA FROM ORBIT

The ISS crew also noticed something unusual after the attacks: the skies over the United States suddenly became almost completely free of airplane contrails, Culbertson told Space.com in 2017. Normally, countless aircraft crossed the country, leaving white trails behind them. After all commercial flights were grounded, those trails disappeared. Culbertson later recalled seeing just one notable contrail moving eastward across the Midwest. It belonged to Air Force One, carrying President George W Bush back toward Washington. For the astronauts watching from space, it was another deeply sobering reminder of the extraordinary events unfolding below.

Culbertson’s photograph offers a perspective that few images of 9/11 can provide. Instead of showing the chaos at street level, it captures the tragedy from hundreds of miles above Earth, where New York appears small beneath an enormous cloud of smoke. That distance makes the image no less powerful. If anything, it emphasizes the scale of what happened.

The photograph also preserves the unique experience of an astronaut who could see the consequences of the attacks but was physically unable to return home and help. Twenty-five years later, Culbertson’s image remains a haunting visual record of September 11, 2001 - a moment when the view from space revealed the profound impact of a tragedy unfolding on Earth.