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Journalism of Courage
Witnessing the northern lights is on the bucket list of many, but imagine if you had the opportunity to see the lights from outer space. Well, if you’re an astronaut then it’s actually possible, and thanks to one social media-savvy soul, we can now see how it looks.
The European Space Agency’s camera captured stunning visuals of the dazzling northern lights from space, and it simply looks magical. The space agency explains that astronaut Paolo Nespoli took more than 700 photos to create the stunning time-lapse of the aurora borealis. The green colour aurora lights are produced by oxygen molecules located close to 100km above earth.
The resulting images show the dancing green lights of the Aurora Borealis light up the night sky from above. The incredible time-lapse was taken as the ISS passed over Canada earlier this month. The Aurora is an incredible light show caused by collisions between electrically charged particles released from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere and collide with gases such as oxygen and nitrogen. The lights are seen around the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres.
Paolo Nespoli, wrote on Twitter, “A stunning aurora caught my eye… its beauty is out of this world!” Since September 23, the video has been favourited over 3,800 times and retweeted over 2,100 times. After which, the International Space Station explained saying, “Variations in color are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common aurora color which is green is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth”.
