NASA Tokyo Olympics Photo: Astronaut Captures Stunning Tokyo Image from International Space Station

It's not only the humans on Earth who are captivated by the biggest sporting event in the world. Astronauts onboard the International Space Station are just as much cheering for their respective countries.

Aside from celebrating the Summer Olympics up in space, the astronauts also captured a stunning photo of Japan's capital city while the Olympics is in full swing.

International Space Station Astronauts Get Into the Olympic Spirit

According to Space, the astronauts onboard the Internation Space Station or ISS were able to watch the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Summer Olympics via a video feed on Friday.

The ISS is commanded by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration. Calling the ISS home are three American astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts, and one French astronaut with the European Space Agency.

The crew held "the very first Space Olympics," said French astronaut Thomas Pesquest on Twitter. The crew split into two teams: the Soyuz team and the Crew Dragon team, playing sports specific to space.

The space sports included synchronized floating or lack-of-floor routine to very long jumps and no-hand ball. The station was also decked out in flags from every country thanks to Pesquet.

NASA Shares Tokyo Olympics Photo

Along with photographs of the crew enjoying their version of the Olympics in the International Space Station, NASA Astronaut Shane Kimbrough also took images of Tokyo from their point of view.

"#Tokyo glows bright with the magic of the Olympics," NASA wrote as their Instagram caption. The photo was of Japan's capital city of Tokyo at night, shining brightly with all the lights clustered to brighten up the city as it hosts the largest international sporting event in the world, News 18 reported.

Though it was evening, the photo was cast in a brighter shade of midnight blue, the silver lining of the Japanese coast showing where the land meets the sea.

This was not the first time astronauts took photos of their view of Earth. In fact, the crew has been posting photos of countries seen from their window 400 kilometers away from our home planet on their Twitter accounts regularly.

NASA has also shared multiple stunning pictures of cities on Earth via their social media platforms. They posted a photo of a glowing Istanbul, the city a bright contrast to the evening color of the Black Sea.

NASA uses satellite images of our planet to record how it is showing signs of change over time. The majority of the physical change Earth has been going through has been caused by humans, including urbanization and reservoir construction. Natural events like cyclones, floods, and volcanic eruptions also alter the physical state of our planet, though not as much as human-caused changes.

The Tokyo Summer Olympics were originally scheduled for the year 2020; however, it was decided that the international sporting event would be postponed to this year in response to the global pandemic caused by the novel COVID-19.

There are over 11,000 athletes representing 206 countries currently competing in this year's Olympics.