That’s a snap of an unmanned cargo ship — technically referred to in NASA-speak as an Automated Transfer Vehicle — firing its maneuvering thrusters as it approached the International Space Station yesterday. This image was taken by astronaut Don Pettit aboard the ISS, and I think it’s simply incredible. Even just a few years ago, you could only see something like this on a fictional TV show like Deep Space Nine or Babylon 5, but here it is, actually happening right over our heads, captured on a perfectly ordinary digital camera and posted to both Twitter and Flickr like any old photo of somebody’s cat. The future hasn’t turned out to be quite what we were promised as kids, but every once in a while, it comes close.

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