Pictured: Spacecraft caught burning up in Earth's atmosphere by an astronaut on the ISS
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A cargo spacecraft purposefully sent to burn up in Earth's atmosphere has been captured in an amazing image from a resident ISS astronaut.
Last Friday the vehicle called Cygnus left the station full of rubbish to be disposed of when it re-entered Earth's atmosphere yesterday.
And the stunning spectacle of fire was spotted from above in a rare photo of its kind by Esa astronaut Alexander Gerst.
Scroll down for video showing the moment Cygnus departed the ISS
Esa astronaut Alexander Gerst captured this stunning image of the Cygnus spacecraft burning up below the ISS last Friday. The cargo spacecraft is purposefully sent to burn up with trash on board
The commercial cargo ship ended its month-long space station visit last week.
Astronauts aboard the ISS released the Cygnus supply ship full of trash for disposal.
They parted company 260 miles (420km) above Africa's southwest coast.
And Gerst, by training his camera down towards Earth, was able to spot the moment the spacecraft was torn apart above the Pacific Ocean by the intense force of re-entering our planet's atmosphere.
'In 84 days [Reid Weisman], [Макс Сураев] and I will ride home inside such an amazing fireball!' Gerst wrote on Twitter, referring to their return to Earth in November this year on a Soyuz spacecraft, albeit with a less destructive descent.
The automated Cygnus craft is used to take cargo to the ISS but unlike other vehicles like SpaceX's Dragon capsule or the Russian Soyuz, it is not able to return to Earth.
Instead, like Esa's own Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), it is designed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere after leaving the station.
And astronauts use this opportunity to fill the vehicle with waste from the ISS to be disposed of.
The automated Cygnus spacecraft departed the ISS last Friday having brought more than 3,000 pounds (1,400 kilograms) of crucial cargo to the station last month
Cygnus is designed and operated by Virginia-based Orbital Science Corporation, with this particular vehicle launching from Virginia in mid-July under a Nasa contract.
The unmanned craft hauled more than 3,000 pounds (1,400 kilograms) of crucial cargo to the orbiting outpost.
When it left it was loaded with 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms) worth of rubbish.
'All the best wishes,' Gerst radioed to the company's flight controllers.
Cygnus does not have a heat shield that can survive re-entry so when it hits the atmosphere it is torn apart, with the intense heat setting fire to the various components. Re-entry is targeted over unpopulated areas of Earth such as the Pacific Ocean in this instance
Cygnus (shown) is designed and operated by Virginia-based Orbital Science Corporation, with this particular vehicle launching from Virginia in mid-July under a Nasa contract
On Sunday Orbital Sciences steered the craft down through the atmosphere to burn up, with the six space station astronauts recording the fiery re-entry for engineering analysis.
The same documentation will be done when a European ATV supply ship departs early next year.
That ship, launched from French Guiana, delivered its shipment a few days before Cygnus left.
Nasa and its international partners - Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada - want to learn as much about atmospheric re-entry as possible to prepare for the space station's eventual demise in the decade or two ahead.
Orbital Sciences is one of two US companies hired by Nasa to deliver space station goods.
The other, California-based SpaceX, will make its next supply run on 19 September.
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