By Dean Murray
A jaw-dropping image shows vibrant aurora over Earth this week.
NASA astronaut Chris Williams captured the spectacle from the International Space Station on January 19.
NASA explained: “A green and red aurora streams across Earth’s horizon above the city lights of Europe looking north across Italy toward Germany.
“The station was orbiting above the Mediterranean Sea at approximately 10:02pm local time when the image was captured.”
Social media users were impressed.
X user Skyta Space commented “Stuff like this makes you forget everything else for a moment. Our planet is actually beautiful,” while ceanmedia posted “That view is unreal—nature putting on a glowing, otherworldly show right over Europe. Amazing capture by the crew and NASA.”
An aurora is a natural display of colored light in the sky caused by charged particles from the Sun colliding with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere near the polar regions.
