Reid Wiseman took the shot from the International Space Station where he is preparing for a spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Alexander Gerst next week.

‘The Milky Way steals the show from Sahara sands that make the Earth glow orange,’ Wiseman wrote on Twitter.

The astronaut took the shot on 27 September, using a Nikon D3S and a 24mm f/1.4 lens, according to the image file’s Exif data.

It was a manual exposure, using a three-second shutter speed and ISO of 12,800.

Wiseman’s post has since been retweeted thousands of times.

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