Emily and the Moon: An Astronaut's View

This panoramic view of the Hurricane Emily's eye was provided by the crew of the International Space Station. As they passed over the southern Gulf of Mexico, they also got a good look eastward towards the rising moon.

The eye is the round, cone-shaped depression in the loud surface which stretches far into the horizon before fading into the Earth's atmosphere, which appears bright blue.

When this image was taken on July 16, 2005, Emily was gaining steam as a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds approaching 155 miles per hour. She was moving west-northwest over the northwest Caribbean Sea about 135 miles southwest of Kingston, Jamaica.

The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season has gotten off to a record-breaking start. Prior to this year, no hurricane has ever reached Category 4 strength in July, the early part of the season. But in the first week of July, Hurricane Dennis reached Category 4, becoming the first ever July Category 4 hurricane.

A few weeks later, Emily became the second ever Category 4 hurricane before the end of July. Emily, which looked as though she would reach Category 5 status, has surpassed Dennis as the strongest pre-August hurricane on record.

--Bjorn Carey

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Credit: NASA Earth Observatory