Astronauts Watch Spacecraft Burn Up In Earth's Atmosphere (PICTURES)

LOOK: Astronauts Watch Spacecraft Burn Up In Earth's Atmosphere
ESA

Astronauts orbiting Earth have captured an amazing picture of a cargo ship burning up in our atmosphere.

And yes, it might look like something described by the miserable robots in Blade Runner, but it's totally real.

The European Space Agency's 'Albert Einstein' ATV-4 spacecraft was an unmanned supply ship which undocked from the ISS on October 29 with 1.6 tons of waste.

It had previously delivered four times that amount of supplies to the team inside the Station, and was left to burn up over an uninhabited stretch of the Pacific ocean.

"Each ATV mission ends with the spacecraft burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere," ESA officials wrote in an image description. "This time, however, the ATV team organized a special departure to gain valuable data on re-entries."

Watch the images in sequence below:

Burn, ATV-4

ATV-4 Burns Up

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