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File:ISS003-ESC-6152.jpg

ISS003-ESC-6152.jpg ‎(540 × 405 pixels, file size: 15 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Summary

Description
English: "As geomagnetic storms cause beautiful displays of aurora across the United States (related story on CNN), astronauts onboard the International Space Station also have the opportunity to take a look. Green colors of the aurora are dominant in this image captured by a digital still camera on October 4, 2001. Auroras are caused when high-energy electrons pour down from the Earth’s magnetosphere and collide with atoms. Green aurora occurs from about 100 km to 250 km altitude and is caused by the emission of 5577 Angstrom wavelength light from oxygen atoms. The light is emitted when the atoms return to their original unexcited state."
Date 22 July 2012
Source NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station, url= http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=1920.
Author Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Centre.

"At times of peaks in solar activity, there are more geomagnetic storms and this increases the auroral activity viewed on Earth and by astronauts from orbit. By using a digital camera with a long exposure time, astronauts can capture a part of the light from the multicolored displays they observe, and downlink those images to Earth."

Licensing

Public domain This file is in the public domain because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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