A NASA astronaut captured a stunning photo of our Milky Way galaxy while in orbit. (Image)

Recently, NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured a photograph of our galaxy, the Milky Way, visible beyond the horizon of our planet. This image, taken from the International Space Station (ISS), offers a completely new perspective on Earth and what lies beyond it, as reported by Gizmodo.

Now, Pettit has revealed what Earth looks like from space, along with the distant features beyond our planet. While the ISS was at an altitude of 424 km above the Pacific Ocean, the astronaut used his camera to take a stunning photograph of our planet. The shot was taken just before sunrise, which is why some areas of Earth are still shrouded in darkness.

At the same time, the photograph captures a portion of the Milky Way beyond Earth's horizon. Our galaxy is visible edge-on, and naturally, the photo cannot encompass its entire size. We can always see only a part of the Milky Way as a long band of gas and stars because we are situated within the galaxy.

The photograph was taken using low-light settings and a long exposure, which helped Pettit capture the blur of Earth's rotation against the focused backdrop of the stars in the Milky Way. This image is remarkable in that our planet does not appear as its usual blue with white clouds, but instead has a greenish hue. Simultaneously, a thin white line illustrates the edge of Earth's atmosphere and the boundary between our world and space.