British astronaut Tim Peake has taken this magnificent picture of Newcastle from space.

The picture, posted by Major Tim on Twitter, was taken 264 miles up from onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

He tweeted with the photo: "Good weather over the Toon today! #NewcastleUponTyne."

Major Peake, 44, blasted off in his Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan together with Russian crew commander Yuri Malenchenko and American Nasa astronaut Tim Kopra in December last year.

He is expected to stay on the station until May.

The ISS orbits around the earth 15 times a day.

It has been in space for more than 6,000 days, during which time it has completed around 100,000 orbits of Earth, and has been continuously occupied for more than 13 years.