Astronaut tweets amazing pic of Ireland from space

THIS IS HOW IRELAND looks by night, as seen from the best possible vantage point one could have: from aboard the International Space Station, 278 kilometres above earth.

The pic – posted last night by mission commander Douglas H Wheelock, better known by his nickname ‘Wheels’ – shows what the astronaut describes as a “beautiful night pass over the Emerald Isle… a little foggy, but otherwise a clear night.”

Click the image to load the full-resolution version (9.5MB in size).

Wheelock regularly posts pictures from his Twitter account (@astro_wheels), some of which we've featured previously. He's been aboard the ISS, as commander of the 25th expedition and as a flight engineer on the 24th, since early June, and will be returning home later this month.

Of course, if they're a bit too official for your tastes, there's also some taken from a paper aeroplane or from a near-earth-orbit iPhone.