Dazzling Auroras Dance on the Southern Horizon in Astronaut's Photo

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NASA astronaut Jack Fischer snapped this photo while looking south from the International Space Station on June 19, 2017.
NASA astronaut Jack Fischer snapped this photo while looking south from the International Space Station on June 19, 2017. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

The southern lights appear to dance on the horizon off the southern coast of Australia in a stunning new photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

The eye-catching image was taken on June 19, according to NASA's Earth Observatory, and the shot captures a gorgeous cosmic interplay: a curved sliver of blue dawn light and the more diffuse green glow of the southern lights (also called the aurora australis), sliced through by one of the space station's solar-panel-covered wings.

But not all auroras glow green. Two factors determine their hue: the type of atmospheric gas that is smashed into, and the altitude at which these collisions occur. The aurora captured here is a result of oxygen gas releasing light 60 to 250 miles (100 to 400 kilometers) up, according to NASA. Nitrogen struck at higher altitudes makes the sky blaze red, while lower down, this results in a breathtaking blue-purple haze, as was the case in New Zealand skies in 2015, reported Yahoo News.

Original article on Live Science.

Sarah B. Puschmann
Sarah B. Puschmann
Staff Writer
Sarah Puschmann is a staff writer for Live Science. She particularly enjoys writing about ecology and evolution and has degrees in creative writing and physics. Before joining Live Science, she taught English in Korea, Costa Rica, Argentina, Sweden, and Germany. Follow her on Twitter.