mysterious array of bright lights just appeared on the space station

Here's a better shot of fishing boats between Japan and South Korea:


The original photo:

They see fishing boat lights all the time, from the observation deck, over the night side, and the external camera catches them regularly and dozens of youtube videos show them. The unique factor with an astronaut's observation a few years ago
was they were doing a spacewalk repair outside the station with their narrow helmet field of view nearly filled with the structural element they were working on. Having lost track of the position of the horizon because he was concentrating on the repair. Chiao noticed a handful of lights passing against a dark Earth and as per protocol reported the observation promptly so Mission Control could check if it was some hazardous condition on the station. Since the weather sat photos show boats right under where the space station flew at exactly the time it fly over, and the visible layout of the boat lights looked just like Chiao said he saw, it seemed to grown-ups that there might have been a connection. www.nbcnews.com...