NASA. Sparkling blue spheres in the earth’s atmosphere. As can be seen in the photo taken by the ISS

A photo of two blue spheres glowing on Earth was captured last year by a member of the 66th expedition who flew to the International Space Station (ISS). The photo was taken in the South China Sea. The photo was posted on October 9 this year on the website NASA Earth Observatory.

What are two flickering spheres?

The first “splash” of light visible at the bottom of the image is love at first sight. It took place in the Gulf of Thailand.

Lightning is rarely seen from the ISS bridge, as it is usually obscured by clouds. However, this particular impact occurred near a large circular slot at the top of the lid, causing lightning to illuminate the walls of the cloud caldera-like structure, forming a ring of light.

The caldera (from the Spanish “caldera”, which means cauldron) is a huge cavity that forms when a volcano erupts and collapses its cone.

The second blue dot in the upper right corner of the photo is the Moon. The position of our natural satellite relative to the ISS causes reflected sunlight to pass directly through the Earth’s atmosphere, turning into a bright blue spot with a fuzzy halo. This is the effect of light scattering from tiny particles in our planet’s atmosphere, writes NASA’s Earth Observatory.

As NASA further explains, the different colors of visible light have different wavelengths, which affects their interaction with atmospheric particles. Blue light has the shortest wavelength and is therefore more susceptible to scattering. Therefore, the moon in this photo is blue. The same effect makes the sky appear blue during the day.