NASA captured the lunar surface as the largest manmade International Space Station (ISS) passed in front of it at 18,000 miles per hour. Unlike other days, the space station was well illuminated by the natural moonlight, marking its clear visibility on Sunday night, instead of a bright shining point in the dark sky.

These rare events were reported after the occurrence of Friday's blue moon in the month of July.

The two NASA photographers, Bill Ingalls and Joel Kowsky, took nine exquisite frames of the space station from Woodford, Virginia, with great efforts as the ISS passed in about 0.82 seconds around lunar surface. However, this is a result of several attempts made by them since 1998 when the construction began.

The ISS is very dwarf (357 feet across) as compared to the moon's diameter (2,159 miles) and is said to be only 258 miles above the surface of the Earth whereas moon is 238,000 miles away.

The ISS currently has six crew members onboard who are conducting various research experiments on gravitational factors and the ISS revolves around the earth once in every 90 minutes.

Till date, more than 200 people have got the opportunity to visit this station and many more are waiting in queue.