Sunday, June 08, 2025

Aurora Australis at The South Pole | International Space Station

Aurora Australis at The South Pole | International Space Station

Expedition 73 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers: "I love looking out the side window of the cupola on the International Space Station. This particular view is looking starboard toward Antarctica to catch the aurora—and look at the star movement! I’ve seen a lot of reds and greens in the aurora, but this one had some purple hues, as well. It’s just gorgeous."

On Earth, auroras are mainly created by particles originally emitted by the Sun in the form of solar wind. When this stream of electrically charged particles gets close to our planet, it interacts with the magnetic field, which acts as a gigantic shield. While it protects Earth’s environment from solar wind particles, it can also trap a small fraction of them. Particles trapped within the magnetosphere—the region of space surrounding Earth in which charged particles are affected by its magnetic field—can be energized and then follow the magnetic field lines down to the magnetic poles. There, they interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere, creating the flickering, colorful lights visible in the polar regions here on Earth.

Earth auroras have different names depending on the pole where they occur. Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, is the name given to auroras around the north pole and Aurora Australis, or the southern lights, is the name given for auroras around the south pole.

Follow Expedition 73:

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)

Video Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center / Nichole Ayers
Duration: 40 seconds
Release Date: June 2, 2025


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