Flying Through an Aurora at More Than 17,000 MPH

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has always served up amazing images via his Twitter account, but his latest is worth special note. The International Space Station resident took a long-exposure shot of an aurora in the Earth's atmosphere.

Auroras are natural light shows that result from solar wind particles flowing down toward the planet's poles. The Aurora Borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, takes place in the northern hemisphere.

"Fly through Aurora at 28,000kmh. Happy 1,000 tweets :-)" Noguchi tweeted today.

Noguchi has gained even more photo opportunities with the addition of an observation deck to the space station back in February. But when he's not roaming around with camera in hand, he has also proved one skillful sushi chef in microgravity.

Astronauts return to Earth on Russian spacecraft

A Russian cosmonaut and a US astronaut returned to Earth on Thursday from the International Space Station (ISS) after 169 days in space, mission control in Moscow said.

"The crew of the Souyz TMA-16 craft is on Earth," it said in a statement, after Jeffrey Williams of the United States and Russia's Maxim Surayev touched down after five-and-a-half months together on the ISS.

At 1125 GMT, the spacecraft "made a safe landing in the designated area northeast of the town of Arkalyk" in the steppes of Kazakhstan, the mission control said.

"The cosmonauts are feeling well," it added.

"Working in frigid temperatures, Russian recovery teams were on hand at the landing site to help the crew exit the Soyuz vehicle and readjust to gravity," the US space agency NASA said in a statement.

NASA said that as members of the Expedition 21 and 22 crews, the two presided over the completion of the US segment of the space station.

The Russian-US duo had been high above Earth for 169 days, blasting off into space on September 30, 2009 and docking with the ISS on October 2, according Russia's mission control.

Until December 1, Surayev and Williams had worked as flight engineers in a crew that also included Belgian Frank De Winne, Canadian Robert Thirsk and Russian Roman Romanenko.

After Winne, Thirsk and Romanenko left, Williams assumed command of the ISS, which had been manned by just two people until three more crew members arrived on December 23.

The three current inhabitants -- Russia's Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi of Japan and US astronaut Timothy Creamer -- will man the ISS until the arrival of a new spacecraft, the Soyuz TMA-18, whose launch is planned for April 2.

The ISS, which orbits 350 kilometres (220 miles) above Earth, is a sophisticated platform for scientific experiments, helping test the effects of long-term space travel on humans, a must for any trip to distant Mars.

International space station gets a 'window to the world'

The Sahara Desert is visible through the seven new windows on the international space station

The international space station now has a room with a view -- and oh, what a view it is.

Astronauts from space shuttle Endeavour installed a connecting module, or node -- sort of an orbiting sun porch -- that will provide additional room for crew members and the space station's life-support systems.

The node's crowning feature is a cupola -- a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center. NASA expects the windows to provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft.

Endeavour Pilot Terry Virts opened the window shutters one at a time early Wednesday, giving spacewalkers Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick a peek into the room they had helped install.

Behnken and Patrick wrapped up their third and final planned spacewalk, a 5-hour, 48-minute effort, at 3:03 a.m. EST. They removed insulation blankets and launch restraint bolts from each of the cupola's seven windows.

Inside the cupola, Virts opened and then closed each window in turn, beginning with the circular 31.5-inch center window. He was the first to look out of that largest station window, on the station's Earth-facing port, NASA said.

Near the end of the spacewalk, all the windows were opened simultaneously. Mission Specialist Kathryn Hire congratulated the spacewalkers for "raising the curtain on a bay window to the world."

The cupola will house controls for the station's robotic arms and will allow crew members to monitor spacewalks and other exterior activities. The window shutters that can be closed to provide protection from orbital debris.

The space station, which orbits the Earth at a height of some 250 miles, is due to be completed next year. It's now about 90 percent complete.