It’s always interesting how natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes that bring such devastation and destruction can also have a type of amazing, terrible beauty. And there’s nothing like a view from space to make us all aware of the true size of natural phenomena.

The International Space Station has captured some footage of Hurricane Irene that is simply stunning. The footage, taken Wednesday afternoon, shows the hurricane as it moved over the Bahamas.

The video, pulled from the NASA website, has this description:

From 230 miles above the Earth, cameras on the International Space Station captured new views of powerful Hurricane Irene as it churned over the Bahamas at 3:10 p.m. EDT on August 24, 2011. Irene is moving to the northwest as a Category 3 hurricane, packing winds of 120 miles an hour. Irene is expected to strengthen to a Category 4 storm as it heads toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Eastern Seaboard and the middle Atlantic and New England states.

Check it out –

The video comments present the strange dichotomy of fear and awe that we feel from something like this. One commenter says how “amazing and humbling” the video is while another says “awesome video of nature’s fury; let’s all hope for minimal damage and casualties.

NASA has been tweeting about the hurricane as it moves toward the east coast of the U.S.

Nature is both fascinating and dangerous. FEMA suggests that you go to ready.gov for tips on how to prepare if you are in the storm’s path. The Red Cross has also come up with a list (pdf) of supplies you need to prepare for the storm.

[The lead image is a view of the hurricane taken yesterday by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on the Terra satellite]