Astronaut Takes Dazzling Photo Of L.A. From Space

Astronaut Scott Kelly has just passed the halfway mark on his year-long journey in outer space—which, when complete, will mark the longest time an American has spent in continuous orbit. Kelly took a photo of Southern California from the International Space Station early this morning, in which we can see the brightest swath of light starkly beaming from the L.A. area.The light pollution doesn't look so bad from up there, now does it?

Kelly has been chronicling his journey through photos on his Twitter account, and they're truly...out of this world (sorry). In the photo above, he captioned it with "#California, your bright lights invite this morning. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station! #YearInSpace"

Here's a few more of Kelly's beautiful photos, just from the last week:

He seems like a pretty cool dude, too. Last week, he answered questions on Twitter about life in space: bathroom habits, how many backflips he can do ("I don't know. A lot."), and what's better: Earth or Space (spoiler: it's Earth, for some reason). But honestly, this seems like the main reason to live in Space:

That, PLUS, he and the crew got to see the new Matt Damon flick Martian before the rest of us earthlings. Lucky. When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut.