A fantastic aurora around the Earth was captured from the International Space Station (ISS). On the 28th (local time), NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, who is currently on a mission at the ISS, took a picture of the aurora and released it on Twitter.
In the picture, it is the aurora that dyes the green light around the bluish Earth. The aurora, which can only be seen in the skies of some polar regions of the earth, was also witnessed on the ISS floating about 400 km above. Regarding this, Kasada left a short but meaningful impression, saying, “It is completely unrealistic.”
In particular, recently, aurorae that beautifully color the night sky are often observed in many parts of the global village because the current solar activity is vigorous. A fantastic aurora show is unfolding in North America and Northern Europe as the solar wind, a phenomenon in which sunspots explode and plasma particles are released, quickly and powerfully pours into the Earth.
Aurora, which can be observed from space as well as on the ground, is a phenomenon in which a stream of high-energy charged particles known as the solar wind collides with gas molecules in the upper atmosphere as it passes around the Earth’s magnetosphere, producing light. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from cosmic radiation, but at the north and south poles that shield is relatively weak, allowing the solar wind to pass through the atmosphere. In general, auroras occur between altitudes of 100 and 300 km and are mainly distributed in latitudes about 20° away from the magnetic pole.
The reason auroras usually appear green is because oxygen atoms, which are abundant in the part of the atmosphere normally reached by the solar wind, emit that hue when excited and energized. Aurora comes from the Latin aurora, which means “dawn”. Auroras are mainly observed in high latitudes in the northern and southern hemispheres and are called aurora borealis, and similar phenomena occur on Jupiter and Saturn.
Reporter Park Jong-ik pji@seoul.co.kr
