Auroras paint the sky in these stunning photos and videos
It’s aurora season on the International Space Station and astronauts living and working in orbit are sharing some of their finest views of the stunning phenomenon with those of us on the ground.
Auroras paint the sky with eerie shades of greens and reds and occur when charged particles from the sun slam into Earth’s atmosphere. Circling the North Pole, the spectacle is dubbed the aurora borealis or northern lights; the southern equivalent is the aurora australis. The latter has been particularly prolific for the past week or so, according to European Space Station astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who has been sharing photos and video of the auroral displays.
“These last few days have been auroraspectacular!,” Pesquet wrote in a tweet posted on Saturday (Aug. 7). “What a show nature put on for us.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_92nLcq79uE
And then today: “An aurora a day keeps the boredom away” Pesquet wrote of his latest stunning photo.
While Pesquet has been most prolific at sharing his front-row view of the atmospheric display, he has company in his skygazing. NASA colleague Shane Kimbrough shared two views as well in a Twitter post on Monday (Aug. 9).
“Magical aurora sightings this weekend from @Space_Station,” he wrote. “The white dots on the bottom half of the pic are stars — millions of them! Can you pick out the Orion constellation in the 1st photo?”
The space station’s own Twitter account got in on the action as well, sharing four different views of the aurora australis over the Indian Ocean on Aug. 4, although the post does not specify which astronaut snagged the photographs.
See more here: space.com
Header image: Space.com
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
First, from reading further I can report that Magen Bartels is the author of this article and she has a MA in science journalism. And that the Space Station was between Asia and Antarctica over the Indian Ocean when the photos were taken.
I consider the latter critically important so that I do not have to assume, from what I see in the photos, that there are TWO IMAGES: one of the ACTUAL ATMOSPHERIC AURORAS (above the horizon) and the other of the AURORAS LIGHT BEING REFLECTED (below the horizon) from the ocean surface beneath the AURORAS .
For find it very interesting how different the two images actually are. Hence, it would be an interesting project for one to try to simply explain how the REFLECTED IMAGE is so different. Which, as of yet, I have not been able to do to my satisfaction. So, I ask a PSI Reader, or more, for help.
Have a good day, Jerry
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coronistan.blogspot.com
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Remember? No stars to see when they were an the Moon. And now stars to see. What is fake? Is it all fake?
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