The aurora – a beautiful spectacle of natural light – is usually only viewed from Earth.
But lucky astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) got a unique view of the spectacle – with Earth in the background.
Stunning video footage shows the brilliant green stream of wispy light spanning thousands of miles across our planet.
In the foreground is Boeing’s cone-shaped Starliner capsule, which was originally supposed to return to Earth by now.
The clip was filmed by NASA’s Matthew Dominick aboard the ISS, which orbits the Earth about 250 miles above sea level.
Incredible: NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick shared his view of the aurora above Earth as seen from the International Space Station (ISS) with Boeing’s Starliner in the foreground
Dominick has been aboard the ISS since early March when he took a trip aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Astronauts on the ISS have their own personal Internet connection, meaning they can post to X, send emails and more.
Dominick took to
“It was great timing for the aurora to line up nicely with the thrusters of Starliner’s service modules.”
An aurora is caused by disturbances in the Earth’s magnetosphere due to a stream of particles from the Sun and is usually located around the Earth’s magnetic poles. That is why it is known as the Northern or Southern Lights.
The charged particles are expelled from the sun at high speed before interacting with Earth’s magnetic field.
Although the aurora in this video is green, its color appearance depends in part on the molecules with which the charged particles interact.
Red and green colors are usually signs of oxygen, pink and red the signs of nitrogen, while blue and purple are the result of hydrogen and helium.
Although it is unclear from the video exactly where the ISS was at that moment, we know that the ISS follows a circular path around our planet.
This image shows one orbit of the ISS around Earth, lasting up to 93 minutes. On a 2D map the track looks like a wave (but this is because it is a projection of a 3D path on a 2D map)
This image courtesy of Maxar Technologies, taken on June 7, 2024, shows the Boeing Starliner spacecraft docked in the forward port of the International Space Station (ISS) on the station’s Harmony module. Because Starliner is docked to the ISS, astronauts can still hop on and off Starliner whenever they want
Crew aboard the ISS: Front, left to right, Suni Williams, Oleg Kononenko and Butch Wilmore. Second row from left: Alexander Grebenkin, Tracy C. Dyson and Mike Barratt. In the back are Nikolai Chub, Jeanette Epps and Matthew Dominick
Also in the video we can see Starliner’s small square window dramatically illuminated with brilliant bursts of bright light.
These are flashlights operated by fellow NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who made a trip to the ISS aboard Starliner on June 5 and arrived the next day.
Wilmore and Williams were only supposed to stay on the ISS for a week, but persistent problems at Starliner mean that they cannot go home yet and have to stay longer than planned.
Officials have discovered five different leaks in Starliner’s propulsion system, which could prevent the spacecraft from navigating through space as it returns to Earth.
NASA says Starliner will now return to Earth no earlier than Saturday, June 22 – more than a week later than originally planned.
Bottom view of the International Space Station (ISS) in November 2021, orbiting about 400 kilometers above Earth
Starliner is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, April 16, 2024
“The additional time will allow the team to complete departure planning and operations while keeping the spacecraft clear for emergency crew return scenarios within flight rules,” NASA and Boeing said in a statement.
Boeing is one of three companies participating in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program – an initiative to fly teams of astronauts to the ISS on behalf of the space agency.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the program’s most successful member to date, conducted its first crewed launch to the ISS in May 2020 using its Crew Dragon spacecraft.
It has conducted a total of nine crewed launches – and will do several more next as part of the program – while rival Boeing lags behind.
Boeing’s first crewed launch was initially scheduled to take place in 2017, but several delays resulted in the mission being launched multiple times.