NASA astronaut Don Pettit has offered a breathtaking perspective of the Maha Kumbh Mela, one that most visitors could never have imagined seeing.
From aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Pettit
captured a stunning night-time photograph of the massive gathering in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, with the brightly lit festival grounds standing out against the darkness of the surrounding landscape.
Pettit was aboard the ISS between September 11, 2024, and April 19, 2025, which coincided with the 2025 Maha Kumbh. The space station orbits Earth at around 28,000 kmph, making the photograph an extraordinary glimpse of the scale of the gathering from hundreds of kilometres above the planet.
Sharing the photograph, Pettit called it his “best shot” of the 2025 Prayag Maha Kumbh Mela. He described the event as a once-in-144-years Hindu pilgrimage to India’s sacred riverbanks and said the photograph contained millions of people in a single frame.
The Maha Kumbh was held at the Triveni Sangam, the sacred confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the believed-to-be invisible Saraswati. Over 45 days, the festival drew an enormous number of pilgrims and visitors to Prayagraj.
While photographs from the ground showed packed riverbanks, processions and illuminated camps, Pettit’s image offers an entirely different sense of the event. Seen from space, the vast spread of lights gives an idea of just how enormous the gathering was.
My best shot of the 2025 Prayag Maha Kumbh Mela from ISS. It is a once in a 144 year Hindu pilgrimage to sacred riverbanks in India and one of the largest events in the world, with millions of people in this single photo! pic.twitter.com/O8OtGTfeul
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) August 20, 2026
The photograph also sparked an emotional response online, with people reflecting on the significance of seeing an ancient religious tradition captured from the International Space Station.
One user on X wrote: “KumbhMela is a religious tradition built on Vedic concepts of sacred rivers, ritual bathing, pilgrimage,cosmic time & spiritual purification. The fascinating part is it shows how an ancient religious worldview evolved over centuries into humanity’s largest spiritual gatherings”
Another commented: “Some 660 million people visited this place in 45 days. This is the largest event anywhere in the world. It has been happening for thousands of years every 12 years based on Jupiter’s orbit precisely calculated by ancient Hindus. Recorded in the Rig Veda, Buddhist canons, and clearly documented by Xuan Zhang from China more than 1300 years ago.”
The photograph also prompted a more emotional reaction from another user:
“Divine and Historic ❤️… Mahakumbh is that beautiful even NASA astronauts got attracted .. clicked best pic from ISS 🙂↔️❤️🔥”
Another simply wrote: “Thank You! 🙏 You have no idea what this means to us. 🙏”
