Universe Today
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano shares a lot of fantastic photos taken from his privileged position 260 miles up aboard the Space Station, orbiting the planet 16 times a day. This is his latest, a stunning view of nighttime city lights spread out beneath a glowing dome of ghostly
airglow
and shimmering aurorae, with a backdrop of brightly shining stars. The dark silhouette of a solar array is in the foreground at right.
And in case you were wondering, yes, astronauts certainly can see stars while in space. A lot of them, in fact. (Except up there, they don't twinkle... but they're no less beautiful!)
– Luca Parmitano
Luca Parmitano is the first of ESA's new generation of astronauts to fly into space. The current mission,
Volare
, is ESA's fifth long-duration Space Station mission. During his six-month-long stay aboard the ISS, Luca has been conducting research for ESA and international partners as well as taken many photographs of our planet, sharing them on
,
Flickr
, and the Volare mission
blog
.
See this and more photos taken by Luca
on the Volare Flickr page here.
Image credit: ESA/NASA