A beautiful exposure take from the International Space Station ( ISS ) has fascinate two dramatic atmospheric phenomena around Earth in one picture .
Snapped just before dawn on March 16 during Expedition 62 as the ISS fly over the southern tip of the Alaskan peninsula , the figure of speech reveals a beam aurora and airglow around Earth .
Both phenomenon are because of particles in Earth ’s upper atmosphere interact and releasing light . The immature curve on the left hand is anaurora , which is produce when charge particles from the solar wind penetrate through Earth ’s magnetic cuticle and collide with atoms and molecules like oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere , producing bursts of light .
Oxygen atoms in the upper atmospheric state relinquish this excess energy as a red luminescence , while oxygen and nitrogen at broken altitudes get the more familiar light-green luminescence .
The orangish band following the curve of Earth is airglow , which , unlike an aurora , is usually too dim to see from the reason and is best observed from Earth ’s orbit . Also unlike aurorae , which are momentary , airglow shine throughout Earth ’s atmosphere constantly , daylight or Nox , case our planet in a bubble of visible radiation that can appearmany different colors , depend on the combining of throttle and how high up they are in the atm .
Airglow is thenatural “ glow”of Earth ’s atmosphere as sunshine interacts with the molecules in the atmosphere . These colorful luminance reflect changes in the ionosphere , the ionized part of Earth ’s upper atmosphere about 80 - 650 kilometers ( 50 - 400 mi ) above Earth ’s surface , not quite still Earth but not quite fully space .
Airglow is because of sunlight depositing muscularity into the atmosphere during the day , which is transferred to O mote . This redundant energy make the mote to rip apart , shape item-by-item oxygen atoms . When they eventually recombine , it exhaust Department of Energy in the form of light .
Nightglow , the airglow thatshines brightest in green , fall out 90 - 100 kilometers ( 55 - 62 miles ) up , while the weaker red - orange tree seen here occur due to the atomic number 8 atoms in a low energy excited res publica higher up , between 150 - 300 kilometers ( 93 - 185 miles ) , where the collision are so infrequent the speck have longer to radiate away their energy .
“ Each atmospheric gas has its own favored airglow color depending on the gas , elevation realm , and excitation process , so you could use airglow to study different layers of the atmosphere,”explainsDoug Rowland , an astrophysicist at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center .
Each type of airglow carry information about the composition , concentration , and temperature of the upper standard pressure , so scientists use it as a proxy to understand how particle move through the ionosphere and what kind of particle exist there , which is key for help us understand how Earth and space weather interconnect . Airglow hold clues to how our atmosphere impress weather condition in space and how infinite weather affects us .
Oh , and they ’re beautiful to look at .
