You do not typically see Earth’s dazzling auroras from this angle.
NASA astronaut Josh Cassada simply snapped a shocking shot of the sunshine show from his perch on the International Space Station (ISS), which flies about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth on common.
“Completely unreal,” Cassada wrote by means of a caption for the picture, which he posted on Twitter (opens in new tab) on Tuesday (Feb. 28).
Associated: Where to see the northern lights: 2023 aurora borealis guide
Cassada is much from the one skywatcher marveling on the auroras lately. The sunshine exhibits — attributable to the interplay of charged solar particles with molecules in Earth’s atmosphere — have been supercharged just lately by robust sun exercise.
Particularly, a “gap” within the sun’s outer environment, or corona, souped up the stream of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing continually from our star. And large clouds of solar plasma that have been rocketed into space by coronal mass ejections slammed into our planet on each Sunday (Feb. 26) and Monday (Feb. 27), including extra gasoline to the auroral fireplace.
In consequence, the shows have unfold removed from the ultrahigh latitudes which can be their pure house. (Earth’s magnetic discipline traces are likely to channel the charged particles towards our planet’s poles.)
The wispy, dancing lights wowed observers throughout the British Isles just lately, for instance, and even made an look as far south as California: They have been photographed above Death Valley National Park on Monday (opens in new tab).
Aurora from Loss of life Valley on 2/27/23. Right here is the panoramic – 4 photographs stitched in Ps. #aurora #deathvalley #spaceweather pic.twitter.com/ohuCC5bTMMFebruary 28, 2023
Cassada arrived on the ISS final October, together with the three different crewmembers of SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission — NASA’s Nicole Mann, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina.
The quartet will be capable of admire our planet from above for simply one other week or so, if all goes in keeping with plan: Crew-5 is scheduled to return to Earth about 5 days after SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission arrives on the orbiting lab. Crew-6 is at the moment slated to raise off early Thursday morning (March 2) from NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a ebook in regards to the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab)or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
