Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen took a fantastic photo from the ISS. The image shows the glow of the earth’s atmosphere (airglow).
Airglow over Earth, taken from the ISS. (Source: NASA, ESA/Andreas Mogensen)
At the end of January, the space agency NASA published a photo of the Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who was slowly moving towards the ISS after a stay of more than five months on the ISS space station Prepared to return to Earth. The long-exposure image was taken at an altitude of 415 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean.
You can see the so-called night sky light, also known as airglow. On the one hand, it is created by ionized atoms and, on the other hand, by indirect scattering of starlight and sunlight in the ionosphere. This refers to the upper part of our atmosphere, which begins at around 80 kilometers.
The ISS orbits the Earth at a speed of eight kilometers per second; a complete orbit takes just 90 minutes. Therefore, astronauts on board the space station experience the change between sunlight and night every 45 minutes – 16 times a day.
Time and again, astronauts manage to take spectacular photos like this one. Normally, the airglow on board the ISS is more noticeable as a green shimmer. Red airglow as seen in the included photo is emitted by molecular oxygen at a distance of up to 300 kilometers; However, excited oxygen atoms at lower altitudes around 100 kilometers are responsible for the green glow.
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