International Space Station commander Samantha Cristoforetti on Saturday greeted Israel with "shalom" and a handful of mesmerizing snaps of the Jewish state from outer space.
The Italian astronaut posted the pictures from orbit on her Twitter account, featuring the Haifa and Tel Aviv metropolitan areas as well the Dead Sea as she continues to photograph and broadcast pictures of different regions of planet Earth from outer space.
"Shalom & hello to #Israel and the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv at night," she wrote in the caption.
She also added that she was "intrigued by these straight lines at the southern end of the Dead Sea – turns out it’s a complex of Jordanian salt evaporation ponds!"
Cristoforetti's footage of Haifa extends from Israel's third-largest city through the Krayot urban cluster and all the way to the historical city of Acre.
The image of the Tel Aviv conurbation depicts the lights of the financial hub and its adjacent cities piercing through the nighttime darkness on the coast of the Mediterranean.
