Tripoli by night

Tripoli by night as seen from space.

ESA's Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli took this photo on 1 January 2011 from the International Space Station, where he is serving as a flight engineer with Cady Coleman, Dmitri Kondratyev, Oleg Skripochka, Alexander Kaleri and commander Scott Kelly.

Paolo’s MagISStra mission is Europe’s third long-duration mission on the ISS. He will land back to Earth in June 2010.