During his eight-month stint at the International Space Station, Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers captured some absolutely gorgeous images of planet Earth.
The Dutch physician and European Space Agency astronaut was selected to participate in International Space Station expeditions 30 and 31. Leaving the planet on December 21st 2011 and returning the following July, Andre Kuipers captured some absolutely incredible images of our planet:
The Indonesian island of Sumbawa
The Argentine Coast
The Southern Lights
Aruba
400 kilometers above Earth
Atmospheric glow
the ATV, docked
The Australian Outback
The Bahamas
A bizarre interaction between light and the sunset
Canada
A comet as seen from the ISS
Europe
Flattened moonbeams
France: Paris is to the left, Toulouse is illuminated to the right
Fishing boats near Hanoi, Vietnam
Spain's Islas Baleares
A lateral view of the ISS
The ISS at moonlight
Istanbul, Turkey
Johannesburg, South Africa
Lake Powell, Las Vegas
The Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas
The Sahara Desert and the Atlantic Ocean
The Middle East
Moonrise
Northern Europe
Mount Vesuvius
Northern Lights from below
The ISS observatories
The Orion constellation
Over Rotterdam, Netherlands
Russia
The Sahara Desert and Mauritania
Over the San Francisco Bay
Over the Somalian desert
The Southern Lights
The Soyuz, docked
The Soyuz TMA
The Soyuz - the apparatus Kuipers used to return to Earth
Star cluster
The super moon
Over the United Kingdom
Venus in the distance
All photos can be found at Kuipers' photo stream, featured on Flickr. And enjoy these amazing photos by Andre Kuipers? Then be sure to check out our posts on amazing facts and astounding aerial photography!
