A view from space – these new photos of Earth from the ISS are out of this world!

Over the past 20 years, some of the best images of Earth have been taken from the International Space Station, as it circles the globe at an altitude of around 250 miles. But with a new Expedition 64 crew that has been on board for over a month, there is a new name to add to the list of astronaut photographers who have been showing us distinctive aerial shots of Earth. ISS Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi is a space veteran, having first worked on the space station in 2009. But now it seems like one of his main tasks is taking pictures of the world below him.

You have already shared a lot of beautiful pictures on your Twitter accountand in the official NASA image registry. And we’ve been especially captivated by some of these photos of the world’s major cities, including New York, San Francisco, and Sydney (as you can see below).

But what is Soichi Noguchi’s weapon of choice for taking pictures from the Cupola observatory module on the ISS? Turns out NASA hasn’t gone mirrorless yet and is sticking with the Nikon D5 DSLR cameras that it bought a batch in 2017. And an astronaut’s lens of choice for photographing the world underfoot? Well, that turns out to be a Nikkor 400mm f / 2.8, a lens most often seen on the sidelines of sports stadiums around the world.