Earth's Dim Atmospheric Glow over Gulf of Thailand | International Space Station

Earth's Dim Atmospheric Glow over Gulf of Thailand | International Space Station

Earth's dim atmospheric glow blankets the Gulf of Thailand dotted with the lights of fishing boats in this orbital nighttime photograph from the International Space Station as it soared 259 miles above. The Gulf of Thailand, also known as the Gulf of Siam, is a shallow inlet in the southwestern, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula.

Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, excited by sunlight, emit light to shed their excess energy. Or, it can happen when atoms and molecules that have been ionized by sunlight collide with and capture a free electron. In both cases, they eject a particle of light—called a photon—in order to relax again. The phenomenon is similar to auroras, but where auroras are driven by high-energy particles originating from the solar wind, airglow is energized by ordinary, day-to-day solar radiation. Airglow can be red, green, purple and yellow swaths of light emanating from the Earth's upper atmosphere. In this picture, it is green.

Expedition 72 Updates:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 72 Crew

Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science 
For more information about STEM on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Capture Date: Nov. 1, 2024
Release Date: Nov. 5, 2024

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