Cities at Night
From
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
Looking
toward the south from an altitude of 400 kilometers, this stunning snapshot from orbit finds
bright lights of Tokyo and cities across central and southern Japan,
planet Earth shining upward through broken clouds.
The spacefaring perspective was captured
last July by astronaut Scott Kelly during his stay on board the International
Space Station.
Thin
stripes of airglow follow the curve of the planet's dark limb, while beyond lie
stars of the constellation Centaurus and the southern sky.
Their
solar panels extended, a docked Soyuz (bottom) and Progress spacecraft are
posed in the foreground.
Kelly returned to planet Earth this week
after his one-year
mission in space.
Cities
at Night