Earth has rarely looked as remarkable as it does in this stunning shot (above) captured by NASA astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station (ISS).
Taken during his recent seven-month mission aboard the orbital outpost, the astonishing image shows an airglow over the planet we call home, together with distant stars and a part of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked at the station.
“SpaceX Dragon flies between the stars of deep space, and a sea of clouds lit by the red upper atmospheric airglow,” Pettit wrote alongside the photo in a social media post that he shared on Sunday. “This is a 20-second exposure taken with my orbital sidereal drive that tracks the stars thus allowing long exposures.”
An airglow is a faint, natural light that occurs as sunlight interacts with atoms and molecules within the atmosphere. It’s seen from space as a thin, colorful glowing band close to the edge of our planet, usually green in color but sometimes red or blue. Unlike auroras, which are driven by solar storms, airglows are always present although they’re only visible at night.
The orbital sidereal drive that Pettit speaks of is an innovative device created by Pettit himself to keep stars sharp in long-exposure photos captured from the space station. The tool moves the camera to compensate for the movement of the ISS, thereby keeping the stars in the same spot on the camera sensor, preventing them from streaking across the frame.
Pettit has earned a reputation for taking breathtaking shots of Earth and beyond from orbit. He shared many of his efforts during his most recent space mission, which ended in April, but since then he’s been sharing new images captured during the same expedition.
Just last week, for example, Pettit posted this incredible near-infrared shot of the Grand Canyon, which he described as “reminiscent of the surface of Mars.”
