Thursday, May 22, 2025

Earth by Moonlight with Airglow | International Space Station

Earth by Moonlight with Airglow | International Space Station

Moonlight casts a silvery light on a set of the International Space Station's main solar arrays and rollout solar arrays and crowned by Earth's atmospheric glow and a wispy aurora as it orbited 272 miles above the southern Indian Ocean at approximately 8:06 p.m. local time.

Moonlight casts a blue light on a set of the International Space Station's main solar arrays and rollout solar arrays and crowned by Earth's atmospheric glow as it orbited 259 miles above the North Pacific Ocean at approximately 3:39 a.m. local time.

You will also notice green and yellow airglow in this image. Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules in the Earth's 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. 

Unlike episodic and fleeting auroras, airglow shines constantly throughout Earth’s atmosphere, and the result is a tenuous bubble of light that closely encases our entire planet. (Auroras, on the other hand, are usually constrained to Earth’s poles.) Just a tenth as bright as all the stars in the night sky, airglow is far more subdued than auroras, too dim to observe easily except in orbit or on the ground with clear, dark skies and a sensitive camera.

Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/why-nasa-watches-airglow-the-colors-of-the-upper-atmospheric-wind/


Expedition 73 Crew
Station Commander: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Flight Engineer Takuya Onishi
Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: 
Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritskiy
NASA Flight Engineers: Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Jonny Kim

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.

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
Release Date: May 15, 2025


#NASA #Space #ISS #Science #Earth #Atmosphere #Airglow #Moon #Moonlight #IndianOcean #PacificOcean #Astronauts #AstronautPhotography #Japan #日本 #JAXA #Cosmonauts #Russia #Россия #Roscosmos #Роскосмос #HumanSpaceflight #SpaceLaboratory #InternationalCooperation #JSC #Expedition73 #STEM #Education

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