International Space Station's most spectacular images

Expedition 7 provided this close-up view of the eye of Hurricane Isabel.

Visible from space, a smoke plume rises from the Manhattan area after two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Expedition Five crew members aboard the station captured this intriguing view of a full moon.

This view featuring the San Francisco Bay Area was photographed by an Expedition 4 crew member on board the International Space Station.

The three-member crew of the Expedition Five mission on board the International Space Station photographed Mt. Etna's spectacular eruption.

Expedition Six photographed this image of greater Los Angeles. You can see Hollywood in the north. Along the coast, you can see Los Angeles International Airport as well as the port at the Long Beach Naval Shipyards. Even Mickey Mouse makes a cameo as the lights of Disneyland in Anaheim are also visible.

That's astronaut Mike Fincke participating in the third of four spacewalks performed by the Expedition 9 crew during their six-month mission.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky when Expedition 11 took this amazing photo of Mount McKinley, Alaska. It didn't hurt matters any that the craft also was equipped with an 800 mm lens to photograph this peak.

Not exactly another day at the office. Astronauts Jerry L. Ross (left) and James H. Newman, work on the final of three space walks of the STS-88 mission.

"Being here, living here, is something that I will probably spend the rest of my life striving to find just the right words to try to encompass and convey just a fraction of what makes our endeavors in space so special and essential," said Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson of Expedition 5.

One for consideration to add to the list: This photo was taken by an astronaut on the ISS of the fiery trail left by the space shuttle Atlantis as it plunged through Earth's atmosphere (July 21, 2011) on its final trip home.