NASA captures haunting view of northern lights meeting above Earth

Some images of Earth seen from the International Space Station show a gentle curve of light above our planet. Some show wispy, ethereal (and often green) dawn. A spectacular image of the ISS shared by NASA shows the two.

“Wavy green aurora borealis veins topped with red appear to cross the band of muted red-yellow light as the ISS passes just south of the Alaska Peninsula,” Earth Observatory wrote. NASA. The twinkling lights below mark the cities of Canada as the stars break through the darkness above.

A NASA astronaut took the image in March and Earth Observatory shared it as its Image of the Day on Sunday.

The two atmospheric phenomena may be similar in terms of their locations and interior glow, but NASA has pointed out how they come from different sources.

Airglow comes from “the emission of light from chemical interactions between oxygen, nitrogen and other molecules in the upper atmosphere”. Auroras are the result of solar particles mixed with the earth’s magnetic field.

NASA did a study on the glow in the air. “It can help scientists learn about the movement of particles near the Earth-space interface, including connections between space weather and Earth weather,” NASA said in a statement. ‘images from 2018.

From a purely aesthetic point of view, the glow of the air and the aurora are subjects worth viewing. The combination of the two is all the more special.