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)

This image made available by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 depicts NASA's Solar Probe Plus spacecraft approaching the sun. On Wednesday, NASA announced it will launch the probe in summer 2018 to explore the solar atmosphere. It will be subjected to brutal heat and radiation like no other man-made structure before. (Photo by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory via AP Photo)

Images created with Post-it notes are seen in the windows of offices at 75 Varick Street in lower Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 18, 2016, where advertising agencies and other companies have started what is being called a “Post-it note art war” with employees creating colorful images in their windows with Post-it notes. (Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters)

Despite any political differences between the United States and Russia, the space agencies of the two countries continue their cooperative work in Earth's orbit, aboard the International Space Station. Apart from the research being done in microgravity, ISS crew members continue to send back amazing images of our home world, photographed from low Earth orbit. Gathered here are recent images of Earth from aboard the ISS, and from a handful of other NASA satellites.

An infrared portrait from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope which shows generations of stars is seen in this undated NASA handout image released February 14, 2013. In this wispy star-forming region, called W5, the oldest stars can be seen as blue dots in the centers of the two hollow cavities (other blue dots are background and foreground stars not associated with the region). Red shows heated dust that pervades the region's cavities, while green highlights dense clouds. (Photo by NASA/Reuters/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian/Handout)

Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut, waves during a departure ceremony at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, on June 16, 2012. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters via The Atlantic)

Image of the Clouds taken in August 2014 by astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS). A year from space photographs of hurricanes, typhoons and meteorite craters show an astronauts-eye view of our planet from hundreds of miles above the earth. The illuminating images were taken by astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) over the course of 2014. (Photo by NASA/SPL/Barcroft Media)

American Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy dances with a robot during the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro on September 7, 2016. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)