NASA Shares Stunning Pic Of Earth’s ‘Airglow’ Taken From International Space Station
The picture, taken from ISS, shows a bright golden glow arching above Earth.
US space agency NASA regularly captures stunning images of our universe, leaving space lovers mesmerized. The Instagram handle of NASA is a treasure trove for those who love to watch educational videos and fascinating images showcasing Earth and space. Now, in its recent post, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shared a stunning image of Earth’s horizon taken from the International Space Station (ISS). The picture, captured by astronaut Andreas Mogensen, shows a bright golden glow illuminating our planet. According to NASA, the atmospheric glow occurs when sunlight interacts with atoms and molecules within Earth’s atmosphere.
“Astronauts have built-in breaks in their daily schedule – so should you! Mindfulness and meditation are both tools used by astronauts for long-duration missions in space that can be applied here on Earth,” NASA captioned the post. “Earth’s atmospheric glow and starry sky are captured in this high-exposure photograph taken from the International Space Station (@ISS) as it soared 258 miles above the Pacific Ocean northeast of Papua New Guinea,” the space agency added.
Take a look below:
The picture reveals a bright golden glow arching above Earth, along with an auburn-coloured band against the dark contrast of a starry sky backdrop. According to Space.com, this phenomenon is known as airglow. This occurs when sunlight energises atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, causing them to emit a soft radiance visible from space.
“A sky full of stars above Earth’s surface as viewed from the ISS. A glow of red is seen above the golden glow of Earth’s atmosphere. Clouds shroud Earth’s surface, that appears to be entirely ocean. At left, are the station’s Nauka science module and the Prichal docking module, both from Roscosmos,” NASA wrote in the image description.
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The space agency shared the image a few days back and since then the post has accumulated more than one million likes and thousands of comments.
“The vastness of space blurs all the boundaries humans have created for themselves,” wrote one user.
“That’s a great picture! The astronaut must have used some sort of star tracker to get perfect round stars in a long exposure (not trails) or tracker to counteract the movement of the ISS so everything looks still. Kudos to them,” commented another.
“Time for a breath”? More like “Take my breath away,” expressed a third stunned user.
“What a beautiful and somehow very solemn photo, in the end we’re just a small rock in the great vastness of space!” added a fourth.
