City Lights at Night: Astronaut's Amazing View from Space

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With hardware from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station appearing in the near foreground, a night time European panorama reveals city lights from Belgium and the Netherlands at bottom center. The picture was taken by members of the space station
With hardware from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station appearing in the near foreground, a night time European panorama reveals city lights from Belgium and the Netherlands at bottom center. The picture was taken by members of the space station's Expedition 30 crew on Jan. 22, 2012. (Image credit: NASA)

A remarkable nighttime panorama taken from the International Space Station captured a dazzling cobweb of city lights as the orbiting complex flew roughly 240 miles (386 kilometers) overhead.

The captivating picture of Earth from space was taken on Jan. 22. The image shows the space station in the foreground, with the lights of Belgium and the Netherlands shining at the bottom center. The British Isles are slightly blocked by the station's solar array panels on the left, according to NASA officials.

The North Sea appears at the left center, and Scandinavia is at the right center, beneath the end of the space station's robotic arm.

Commander Dan Burbank and Don Pettit of NASA, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Kononenko, and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers make up the station's Expedition 30 crew.

In addition to amazing photos, the space station's crew has also recorded some stunning videos of Earth from space, including this one of comet Lovejoy over the planet at night:

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
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Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.