Intense Awe in Space

Picture Earth in a frame. It looks unassuming, a fleck against a black interstellar backdrop, yet the image likely evokes some reaction. Now imagine this view from space.

Astronauts who experience Earth from orbit often report feeling awe and wonder. Penn research fellows David Yaden, LPS’12, and Johannes Eichstaedt, LPS’11, GR’22, and intern Jonathan Iwry, C’14, from Penn’s Positive Psychology Center, along with researchers from Harvard, Thomas Jefferson University, and NASA, are studying this “overview effect” to better understand such emotions.

They have two goals: to look at implications for space flight as the aeronautical community heads toward years-long missions to places like Mars and to replicate the sensation for non-astronauts.

Yaden and colleagues analyzed excerpts from astronauts worldwide who documented viewing Earth from space. Themes emerged like unity, vastness, and connectedness.
 
“We watch sunsets when we travel to beautiful places to get a little taste of this kind of experience. These astronauts are having something more extreme,” Yaden says. “By studying the more-extreme version of a general phenomenon, you can often learn more about it.”

The researchers, who published their findings in Psychology of Consciousness, aim to collaborate with private groups like SpaceX as an interim step to working with astronauts back from space and on their way up.