A NASA astronaut has shared a breathtaking time-lapse video of the southern lights, filmed from a spacecraft orbiting high above the Earth. Jessica Meir, who is currently carrying out a mission inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule, captured the vivid display over the weekend. She posted the spectacular footage on social media, describing her complete amazement at the natural light show.
The shimmering green display, also known as the aurora australis, occurred after a recent solar storm sent a wave of energy towards our planet. Unlike previous auroras she had witnessed, Dr Meir noted that this specific light show danced and snaked its way directly underneath the spacecraft. She added that she was left in absolute awe of the beautiful and deeply moving phenomenon.
Watch the video here:
These dramatic light shows occur when the sun releases bursts of charged particles into deep space. As these particles travel towards Earth, our planet's magnetic field channels them towards the north and south poles. When they hit the upper atmosphere, they collide with different gases, causing them to glow and create moving curtains of colour across the night sky.
While the northern lights are frequently seen by people living in northern Europe and North America, the southern lights are far more difficult to spot from the ground. This is because they mostly appear over Antarctica and the vast southern oceans, where very few people live.
Orbiting the planet at thousands of miles per hour, the astronauts inside the spacecraft were given a rare and completely unobstructed view of the event. The stunning footage has since been widely shared online, offering people on Earth a unique look at the planet's atmospheric beauty from a perspective that very few humans ever get to experience.
