This is pretty cool

On June 16 2009, the International Space Station (ISS) happened to be falling over the Kuril Islands northeast of Japan. (I would have said "flying", but falling is a more accurate description of an object in orbit. Not to be confused with "falling out of the sky") The crew of the ISS have a camera with them. As they were falling over the Kuril Islands, they would have been very glad they have this camera. Here's why:



Before you say it, no, they weren't just lucky the clouds parted at the right moment to give them a view of the volcano, the clouds were parted by the shockwave of the eruption. Scientists might even be able to learn new things about powerfull volcanic eruptions from this photo. As far as i know it's the first ever photo of an erupting volcano taken from space.

If you want to see the effects of this eruption first hand, click here to find out how.