The International Space Station beautifully captures the Earth’s aurora

The current crew of the International Space Station Expedition 64 recently shared some wonderful photos of the Northern Lights. The stunning natural colors are due to the orbit of the station which carries it up to 51.6 degrees above the equator.

As explained by Digital trends, the Northern Lights appear when particles from solar storms interact with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. The best places to see the Northern Lights on earth are as close to the Arctic Circle as possible in the Northern Hemisphere, and the far south of Tasmania and New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere.

But from space, moving your orbit into position can reveal the natural phenomenon. Below are the images recently shared on NASA’s Flickr account:

The image above was captured on January 18 as the International Space Station orbit 264 miles above the North Atlantic. “The glow from the earth’s air, an optical phenomenon caused by cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere, covers the horizon,” the caption reads.

This photo, also taken on Jan. 18, was taken while the ISS was in orbit 263 miles above Romania. The city lights of Sweden and Finland are visible under the aurora above the earth’s horizon. The dark area between the two Scandinavian countries is the Baltic Sea.

The two photos above were taken on January 13, 264 miles above Kazakhstan and look north towards Russia where the well-lit cities can be seen under the aurora.

Captured on January 12, these last two photos were both taken over Russia. The first image shows a look between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, while the second is closer to the western border of Kazakhstan.

All of the images above were captured on a Nikon D5 with a 58mm or 85mm lens.

This documentary recently released on NASA’s YouTube channel shows more auroras captured from the space station as well as several other stories of what it’s like to look at Earth from above.

(via digital trends)