It is the largest manmade object in orbit around our planet, yet the International Space Station was dwarfed by the moon as it was captured passing in front of the bright lunar surface.
Nasa released this stunningly detailed close up of the lunar surface as the space station transited in front of it at a speed of around five miles per second, or 18,000 miles per hour.
Usually the ISS can only be glimpsed as a bright shining streak in the sky, almost indistinguishable from the stars apart from its rapid movement.
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The International Space Station, the largest man made object in space, appears as a tiny silhouette against the bright surface of the moon as it made a rare pass in front of the lunar surface on Sunday. The image above shows the ISS in front of the moon with a stock image of the ISS when viewed from above
However, backlit by the reflected light from the surface of the moon, the space station became far more visible on Sunday night, making it possible to make out its massive solar arrays.
‘This was not our first attempt, so learning from your mistakes and trying again is always important.’
The ISS is just 357 feet across, larger than a football pitch, while the moon is an enormous 2,159 miles in diameter.
Even so, the space station looks relatively large against the lunar backdrop in these pictures as it is significantly closer to the Earth.
The ISS orbits at just 258 miles above the Earth’s surface while the moon is another 238,600 miles away.
At present there are six crew members on board the ISS after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft delivered Nasa astronaut Kjell Lingren, Kimiya Yui, from Japan, and Oleg Kononenko, a veteran Russian cosmonaut safely to the space station.
Nasa photographers have been trying for several years to capture an image of the International Space station passing in front of the moon and they found success on Sunday night. In the image above they stitched together nine frames to show the path the ISS took as it passed in front of the lunar surface
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Although bigger than a football pitch, the ISS was dwarfed by the crater covered surface of the moon as it passed in front of it. The space station is a small silhouette just above the large crater in the image above
They joined Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Kornienko and Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly on board the orbiting outpost.
The ISS orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes and has been visited by more than 200 people.
The crew spend around 35 hours each week conducing research experiments to help scientists better understand life in low gravity.
![](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/08/03/11/2B09882E00000578-3183722-The_International_Space_Station_is_normally_only_visible_as_a_br-a-4_1438596221735.jpg)
The International Space Station is normally only visible as a bright streak in the sky as it passes overhead, but backlit by the bright surface of the moon it is possible to make out its massive solar arrays
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The whole transit across the front of the moon took just 0.82 seconds, meaning photographers had to react quickly to capture the images, like the one above. There are currently six crew members on board the ISS, which can be seen as it passes over the bright dusty surface of the moon