The reflective face of the Moon lights up the skies almost every night from a distance of 240,000 miles (384,400km). Here, NASA astronaut Nick Hague snapped the Moon from a rather unusual perspective – 250 miles (402km) above the Earth’s surface. Mr Hague is one of the six astronauts currently stationed onboard the International Space Station (ISS). This unique position gives the NASA Flight Engineer an incredible opportunity to photograph the Earth, the Moon and the stars from space.
The NASA astronaut shared the beautiful image with his 38,200 followers on Twitter.
Mr Hague captioned the image: “Moon lighting up the night sky…”
The space photo was taken on the nightside of Earth, shrouding the ISS in almost complete darkness.
Every 24 hours, the ISS completes 16 orbits of our planet, meaning its astronauts witness 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets a day.
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The unusual rhythm is due to the ISS barreling around the Earth at more than 17,000mph or 7.66km per second.
In Mr Hague’s photo, you can see the Moon as a single glowing orb of blue-white light just below the Earth.
A green-yellow glow around the curve of the planet shows the extent of the atmosphere into space.
Beyond the Earth and the Moon is a detailed background view of the billions of stars peppered throughout the visible universe.
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And at the bottom of the image is a faint, black outline of the space station itself.
Earlier this year the astronaut shared another stunning picture of the planet, saying: “Took a moment to capture the beauty of our planet today.
“I was awestruck as I watched the wispy clouds disappear into the shadows.”
Mr Hague joined the ISS in March this year after a failed launch in October 2018 delayed his mission.
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The astronaut was selected by NASA for duty in 2013, and Mr Hague is now part of the ISS Expedition 59 and Expedition 60 crew.
NASA said: “Hague was the first astronaut from his class to be assigned to a mission which launched on October 11, 2018.
“Unfortunately, he and his crewmate Alexey Ovchinin, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, were forced to abort the mission when a rocket booster experienced a malfunction shortly after the launch of their Soyuz MS-10. The aborted spacecraft landed safely.”
Mr Hague is a “distinguished graduate” of the United States Air Force Academy and is a top flight test engineer of the United States Air Force Test Pilot School Class 03A.