Milky Way View with Airglow | International Space Station
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Expedition 74 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Chris Williams: "One question I get a lot is can you see the stars differently from up in space. When we orbit on the night side of the planet, we get a view of the stars very much like being in a very dark place on Earth. And because of our orbital inclination, we get to see the stars of both the northern and southern hemisphere. I captured this shot of our galactic plane from one of the windows of the Crew Dragon Freedom that is docked to the zenith docking port."
You will notice layers of yellow and green airglow in this image. Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules in the Earth's upper atmosphere, excited by sunlight, emit light to shed their excess energy. Or, it can happen when atoms and molecules that have been ionized by sunlight collide with and capture a free electron. In both cases, they eject a particle of light—called a photon—in order to relax again. The phenomenon is similar to auroras, but where auroras are driven by high-energy particles originating from the solar wind, airglow is energized by ordinary, day-to-day solar radiation.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/
Station Commander: Sergey-Kud Sverchkov (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Andrey Fedyaev, Sergei Mikaev
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
Release Date: May 4, 2026
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