More than 1.3 million photos have been taken from the ISS since the first module reached the low orbit - about 400 km from the Earth’s surface – in 2000, but the current crop of astronauts, who include three first-timers out of the six-strong team, are particularly talented photographers, RT reported Sunday.
Baltimore native Reid Wiseman has been obsessively documenting every day of the mission, flooding the social media with dozens of pictures every week since his arrival at the ISS in late May.
Rather than just posting pretty pictures, the US astronaut has used them to give a different perspective on important events down below, often commenting on deadly natural phenomena from the distance of his space capsule.
Wildfires along the spectacular Western Australia coastline.
The German Alexander Gerst, also making his maiden journey into the orbit, is more inclined towards spectacular visual effects.
Gerst wrote of this photo of Hawke Bay, New Zealand: oceans used to be just water. I will never look at them that way again.
The geophysicist also took the most iconic photo of the mission so far.
My saddest photo yet. From ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over Gaza and Israel
In contrast to his colleagues, the Russian first-timer, flight engineer Oleg Artemyev, has focused on snaps that make the Earth look like a surreal artistic pattern.
While Artemyev's chance to vie for the title of the best photographer in space will run out next month, when Expedition 40 comes to an end in September, Gerst and Wiseman will be up against a new bunch of keen recruits for three months following the crew changeover.
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