PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, ASTRONAUT DON PETTIT CAPTURES A VIVID GREEN AURORA
After 590 days in space, astronaut Don Pettit just returned to Earth. At the age of 70, he is regarded as the third oldest astronaut to have ever been in orbit and the oldest NASA astronaut currently in service. During his four space missions, Pettit has demonstrated a talent for orbital astrophotography, or photographs of space taken from orbit aboard the ISS. He caught a vivid green aurora from his unusual vantage point just a few weeks before his flight home.
Imagine witnessing an aurora as it shimmers and moves around the Earth's curvature, if you find the sight of one from the ground to be captivating. A green glow may be seen over the Southern Hemisphere in the video that Pettit shared on social media. He captioned his stunning photo with the words, "Aurora flyby last night while @iss orbit route was between Antarctica and Australia." The Aurora Australis is depicted as "vaporous turbulence" in a separate video that was shot closer to the surface of the Earth.
Pettit was filming this amazing footage as astronaut Jannicke Mikkelsen was on the private FRAM2 Space Mission, which was the first human spaceflight over the polar regions of Earth. She thus had an even more unique perspective on this phenomenon. Mikkelsen offered to upload her photos once she got back home, and Pettit said he was eager to see them as well. She wrote, "We look forward to [sic] sharing these videos with you post-mission splashdown, but they are HUGE in file size."
The views of the Aurora Australis are only a few of Pettit's many amazing photographs and movies. He recorded a star field time exposure with Andromeda M31 earlier this year, a crescent moon above the horizon, and the comet Atlas C2024-G3. He occasionally peered down at our home planet as well, taking nighttime pictures of Hong Kong, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Betsiboka River in Madagascar.
Just before returning home, he posted possibly the most moving of all his photographs—a self-portrait alongside the camera that allowed him to capture all these images. “Tomorrow I once again become an Earthling,” he wrote, bidding goodbye to the ISS. “What an adventure this mission has been.”
