[imagesource: NASA]

Last month, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken made a wise decision and left this planet behind, launching into space aboard the Falcon 9 Crew Dragon rocket, later renamed the Endeavour.

The SpaceX launch, assisted by NASA, made history by becoming the first time a commercial aerospace company has carried humans into Earth’s orbit.

That’s Hurley on the left, and Behnken on the right, above, before the launch, obviously.

The duo have been carrying out a number of tasks and experiments since their arrival at the International Space Station, and Hurley has also been snapping some great photos of what can be seen from space.

Fresh off celebrating the Fourth of July (or Independence Day), Hurley shared these images to Twitter yesterday:

South African cities at night. Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. pic.twitter.com/Eo2BaOJyvq

— Col. Doug Hurley (@Astro_Doug) July 5, 2020

If you would prefer to have the images laid out one by one, you’re in luck:

You know which image is which city, right? We can’t spoonfeed you all the time.

Clearly, there wasn’t a great deal of load shedding going on (or is it load reduction?).

Sorry, Durban – maybe your time is still to come.

It’s not just South Africa that Hurley has trained the lens on, with Digital Trends picking out some of his other recent photos.

Below each photo is the text Hurley posted:

“The Bahamas, absolutely one of the most beautiful sights on Earth from space.”

“Sandstorms in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.”

“Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; Shoshone, Caribou-Targhee, and Bridger-Teton National Forests, as well as the Wind River Mountains, all in one picture.”

“Earth Art, southwest Libya.”

The Flat Earth crew must be hating these photos.

Cue tinfoil hat comments.

You can see more of Hurley’s photos via his Twitter account, and the Digital Trends article.

[source:digitaltrends]