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)

A woman walks with her child past a Soyuz rocket, installed as a monument at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, the world's first and largest operational space launch facility, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Saturday, November 12, 2016. The new Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 18. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

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)

Roland Miller is on a mission to document the deserted sites of America’s space race. He has photographed launch pads, bunkhouses and research facilities across the country, some of which no longer exist or are closed to the public on secure military bases. His book, “Abandoned in Place”, is published by the University of New Mexico Press in March. Here: Launch Pad and Gantry with Hermes A-1 Rocket – V2 Launch Complex 33, White Sands missile range, New Mexico in 2006. (Photo by Roland Miller)

Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, Expedition 40 flight engineer, attired in a Russian Orlan spacesuit, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) in support of science and maintenance on the International Space Station on August 18, 2014. During the five-hour, 11-minute spacewalk, Skvortsov and cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev (out of frame) deployed a small science satellite, retrieved and installed experiment packages and inspected components on the exterior of the orbital laboratory. (Photo by NASA)

Kea are the only true alpine parrots in the world and thrive as cunning opportunists in the freezing conditions of the Southern Alps. Kea are thought to have developed their wide array of food-finding strategies during the last great ice age, where they learned to adapt using their unusual powers of curiosity. (Photo by Tom Walker/BBC Pictures/The Guardian)