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Super Typhoon Awes Astronaut

Super Typhoon Maysak is currently barreling toward the Philippines with the violent power of a Category 5 hurricane.
European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti captured this image of Typhoon #Maysak from the international Space Station on April 1.
European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti captured this image of Typhoon #Maysak from the international Space Station on April 1.Samantha Cristoforetti / ESA/NASA
/ Source: NBC News

Super Typhoon Maysak is currently barreling toward the Philippines with the violent power of a Category 5 hurricane. But 250 miles above the destructive 180 mph winds, a photograph taken aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday showed the storm from a calmer angle.

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti posted the photos to her Twitter and Flickr accounts. Maysak “commands respect, even from space,” she said. Maysak is expected to weaken before making landfall across the northern Philippines early Sunday. It has so far killed at least five people across the island cluster of Micronesia, The Associated Press reported.

— Alexander Smith