A City From Outer Space

By: OMER SHACHNAI

Published: January 7th 2011 January 7th 2011

A picture of Tel Aviv as seen from outer space

in News

A city out of this world: Israel's Ministry of Tourism got a break this week, as the Italian astronaut, Paolo Nespoli uploaded a picture he took of the city of Tel Aviv, from outer space, to Flickr. The space man surprised his followers on the photo-sharing network, by hosting a "guess which city" trivia of pictures of cities he took including Tel Aviv, as seen from the International Space Station. However, in addition to the wonderful close-up from space, he has mistakenly given it the title of a "capital in the Middle East."

Nespoli, who is currently floating 400 kilometer high, uploaded an amazing picture he took from his own camera of a city lit at night time, with the inscription: "A Middle East city. Which one?" The answers followed shortly: many of his followers immediately recognized Tel Aviv and replied. Finally, the astronaut answered them back "Well done! Bravo! Tel Aviv". Many of the commentators added that it is a marvelous picture regardless of which city is it. There was also some dispute regarding the fact that Tel Aviv is not the capital of Israel, but Jerusalem is.

The picture shows the city that never sleeps' beautiful coastline at night and a part of the southern Israeli Coastal Plain (Mishor HaḤof). The cities of Netanya, Herzliya, Ra'anana, Kfar-Sva can are located on the right of the picture (north direction). Tel Aviv, Gush-Dan (the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area) and Rishon-Lezion are located in the center, whereas Ashdod is located in the left edge of the photo.