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Egypt's Lake Nasser glimmers in the sun in a photograph taken by NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao from the International Space Station.

Chiao lived aboard the International Space Station from October 2004 to April 2005 as commander of NASA's Expedition 10. During that time, he took more than 24,000 digital photos from his one-of-a-kind vantage point in orbit.

With help from a team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Chiao selected subjects for his photos based on the space station's position, the weather below, and the angle of the sunlight.

In this photograph, light reflected off the surface of the water—a phenomenon astronauts call sunglint—makes the lake appear to glow.

"I was able to shoot this photo just as the sun was reflecting off of the water, making it appear to be liquid metal," Chiao said in a statement.

NASA recently released several of Chiao's Expedition 10 photographs. This gallery highlights a few of Chiao's own favorites from his six-month photo shoot in space.

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