Monday, January 06, 2025

Vivid Green Earth Aurora | International Space Station

Vivid Green Earth Aurora | International Space Station


NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 flight engineer Don Pettit has released this short timelapse video of aurora over Earth. Auroras are produced when the Earth's magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color and complexity. [Wikipedia]

Solid Colored Aurora
Green is common at the upper latitudes, while red is rare. On the other hand, aurora viewed from lower latitudes tend to be red.

Element Emission Colors
Oxygen: The big player in the aurora is oxygen. Oxygen is responsible for the vivid green (wavelength of 557.7 nm) and also for a deep brownish-red (wavelength of 630.0 nm). Pure green and greenish-yellow aurorae result from the excitation of oxygen.

Nitrogen: Nitrogen emits blue (multiple wavelengths) and red light.

Other Gases: Other gases in the atmosphere become excited and emit light, although the wavelengths may be outside of the range of human vision or else too faint to see. Hydrogen and helium, for example, emit blue and purple. Although our eyes cannot see all of these colors, photographic film and digital cameras often record a broader range of hues.

Aurora Colors According to Altitude
Above 150 miles: red, oxygen
Up to 150 miles: green, oxygen
Above 60 miles: purple or violet, nitrogen
Up to 60 miles: blue, nitrogen

The Colors of the Aurora (National Park Service)
https://www.nps.gov/articles/-articles-aps-v8-i1-c9.htm

Expedition 72 Updates:
Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA Flight Engineers: 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.


Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)/Don Pettit
Duration: 8 seconds
Release Date: Jan. 6, 2024

#NASA #FoN #Space #Science #ISS #Sun #Earth #Aurora #AstronautPhotography #Astronauts #DonPettit #SuniWilliams #ButchWilmore #NickHague #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #InternationalCooperation #LongDurationMissions #SpaceLaboratory #HumanSpaceflight #UnitedStates #Expedition72 #STEM #Education #Timelapse #HD #Video

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