ESA astronaut Tim Peake posted this stunning image on his social media channels, commenting: “Station passed through magnificent aurora Australis last night”. Tim is set to return to Earth on 18 June 2016, bringing his six-month Principia mission to the ISS to an end. During his stay he performed more than 30 scientific experiments for ESA and taking part in numerous others from ESA's international partners. ESA and the UK Space Agency have partnered to develop many exciting educational activities around the Principia mission, aimed at sparking the interest of young children in science and space. (Photo by Tim Peake/ESA/NASA)

An artist's impression of a growing supermassive black hole located in the early Universe is seen in this NASA handout illustration released on June 15, 2011. Using the deepest X-ray image ever taken, astronomers found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. This discovery from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought, in tandem with the growth of their host galaxies. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/Chandra X-Ray Observatory/A.Hobart)

Girls of the Long Horn Miao ethnic minority group wear headdresses as they prepare gather for Tiaohua or Flower Festival as part of the Lunar New Year on February 6, 2017 in Longga village, Guizhou province, southern China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Shamila, 15, from an internally displaced family, adjusts her wedding dress in an old mud house yard, on her wedding day, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, May 19, 2023. “I have no choice. If I don’t accept, my family will be hurt”, she says. Due to poverty and debt, her father had to marry her to a boy at a young age. Her father said that if I did not do this, I might have to give my daughter to someone that I owe. Now, with the money I received from the boy's family, I can pay my debt and treat my son. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

A young sloth named Gloria, that was rescued after being stolen from the wild destined for trafficking, peeks out of the box it is being taken to be released at the city's Botanical Garden in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, March 13, 2023. Gloria was cared for by the Free Life Institute NGO that rehabilitates injured wildlife found in the surrounding Rio area and returns them, when possible, back to the wild. Those that are too injured to be released are sent to other rehab centers or sanctuaries to live out their lives in protected environments. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)

A young girl splashes through a waterfall at a park in Washington, DC, on June 28, 2021, as a heatwave moves over much of the United States. Swathes of the United States and Canada endured record-setting heat on June 27, 2021, forcing schools and Covid-19 testing centers to close and the postponement of an Olympic athletics qualifying event, with forecasters warning of worse to come. The village of Lytton in British Columbia broke the record for Canada's all-time high, with a temperature of 46.6 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit), said Environment Canada. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP Photo)

A young bull flees from a Brazilian vaqueiro, or cowboy, competing in the “Pega de Boi” (Ox Catch) tournament in Cabrobo, Pernambuco State, Brazil, on September 4, 2022. The riders compete in pairs to retrieve a cord from a bull which has been released and runs away from them and they are timed on how quickly they can return with the cord. The leather clothing provides them with protection from the dense savannah vegetation which contains a lot of large thorns. Riders have been known to die competing in the tournament (Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP Photo)

Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago. It is annually held for 4 days from July 22 to 25 in Haramachi City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the eastern part of Japan. In this historical event, 600 mounted samurai in traditional Japanese armor, with long swords at their side and ancestral flagstaffs streaming from their backs, ride across open fields. Soma-Nomaoi has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Photo: A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012. The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)