A room with a gorgeous view: fascinating photos of the Earth from the International Space Station

The International Space Station has been in orbit for 17 years, covering a distance of more than 4.1 billion kilometers. Astronauts from international expeditions send photos of our planet to Earth almost daily, taken with the help of powerful digital cameras. Clouds of unusual shapes, majestic lightning shows, colorful auroras, sunsets and night landscapes fall into the frame of their lenses.

(20 photos in total)

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Since its launch into space 17 years ago, the ISS has circled the Earth more than 100 thousand times. During their stay on board the station, the crews had the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful views. More than 3 million images have already been taken from the ISS, whose orbit passes 400 kilometers from the Earth's surface.

The ISS crew members can be called lucky, because they have the opportunity to observe such beautiful pictures with their own eyes.

This picture shows the New York metropolitan area, the largest on the east coast of the United States.

Lightning flashes illuminate the storm raging on Earth, and the Milky Way is visible in the distance.

The chaotic advance of sand dunes from the desert in Central Algeria on the surrounding landscape.

This photo of the snowy peaks of the Himalayas was taken in May 2016.

A thunderstorm in Arkansas looks dramatic from the sky.

Astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a whole year in orbit, took this beautiful picture of the dawn on March 1.

This sunrise photo was taken by British astronaut Tim Peake.

The stars of the Milky Way galaxy can be seen through such a visually thin atmosphere of the Earth.

In the picture in the first row (from left to right), Briton Timothy Peake, American Timothy Kopra and Russian Yuri Malenchenko. In the background, Russians Oleg Skripochka, Alexey Ovchinin and American Jeffrey Williams.

American Tim Kopra, the commander of the ISS crew, took a photo of Chicago at night, which perfectly shows the lattice structure of streets characteristic of this city.

At a certain angle of incidence of sunlight, ISS crew members can observe quite bizarre pictures, such as these cumulus clouds captured by Major Peak on April 3, 2016.

Mount Brandberg, Namibia.

Night Italy.

No, this is not an abstract artist's drawing, these are dunes in the Namib desert, South-West Africa.

But irrigation facilities in Saudi Arabia have such a beautiful geometric design.

Glacial river flowing into Lake Lago Argentino (Patagonia, Argentina).

Coastline, the northeast coast of Australia.

Beautiful clouds of bizarre shapes.