The disintegration of a Perseid meteor photographed in August 2011 from the ISS. The lack of an atmosphere at the orbiting altitude of the ISS allows the residents on the space station to see the stars, the Milky Way and other astronomical features with much greater clarity than is possible on Earth. As light travels through layers of hot and cold air, the bending of its rays render a flickering image of these distant objects, while atmospheric particles such as dust prevent from seeing fainter objects such as nebulae and galaxies. The dramatic views from the station display a rainbow-like horizon as the Sun appears and disappears beyond the horizon.Īmazing sightings of distant astronomical objects as seen from the space shuttleįrom the ground, atmospheric conditions and light pollution affect our ability to see stars and other celestial bodies. ![]() With the ISS orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, astronauts can see the Sun rise and set around 16 times every 24 hours. However, instead of occurring in the lower layer of Earth’s atmosphere, these very fast, red-coloured discharges (due to the excited nitrogen at this altitude) occur much higher up and are as such difficult to observe from the ground. Sprites are electrical discharges, similar to thunder lights. ISS astronauts spotted a sprite (the red jellyfish-like structure on the right of the image) appearing above thunder clouds on August 10, 2015. ![]() What is unusual, however, is seeing lightning sprites, which were observed on August 10thby astronauts aboard the space station. When the ISS orbits over a sea of thunderclouds, it’s not rare for astronauts to witness an impressive amount of lightning.
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