These out-of-this-world scenes from the International Space Station (ISS), which Russia says it will leave in 2024, show how breathtaking Earth looks from afar and what life is like on an orbiting laboratory.

Almost 30 years ago then-US vice-president Al Gore and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans to build a new space station.

This would eventually become the ISS, kicking off decades of otherworldly collaboration between two nations with a history of divide. 

Since 2000, the ISS has always been manned. 

Here, US, Russian and Italian crew members demonstrate the weightlessness aboard.

This resupply ship from Russian Space Agency Roscosmos can carry different types of cargo including hardware, research investigations, supplies and provisions.

Breathtaking pictures show sunrays bursting above Earth's horizon as the ISS floats 425 kilometres above Western Australia, off the coast of Shark Bay.

While the space station orbits the Earth and floats north of Antarctica, it comes across famous natural phenomena like the northern lights, Aurora Borealis.

German astronaut Matthias Maurer from the European Space Agency (ESA) is pictured installing thermal gear and electronic components on the orbiting lab.

Astonishing images above South Australia show a docking module from space agency Roscosmos which is attached to a multipurpose laboratory module. 

NASA has even managed to grow chillies inside the space station in a botany experiment they call Plant Habitat-04.

The ISS floated above the south Pacific Ocean, east of New Zealand, when this photograph was taken from a window.

Russia has announced that it is planning to build its own orbital station.