The Milky Way & Southeast Asia's Multicolored Lights | International Space Station

The Milky Way & Southeast Asia's Multicolored Lights | International Space Station

Expedition 71/72 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Don Pettit: "One of my favorite Milky Way photos from ISS with the multicolored lights of Southeast Asia streaking across the exposure from orbital velocity, while distant stars remain fixed by my star tracker. The long exposure intensifies the atmospheric airglow into a thick red band!"

Airglow is a faint emission of light caused by chemical reactions and interactions between ultraviolet (UV) radiation and gases in our planet's atmosphere. Unlike aurora, caused by solar wind particles interacting with Earth’s magnetic field, airglow is ever present.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth on April 19, 2025, concluding a seven-month science mission aboard the International Space Station. Pettit spent 220 days in space, earning him a total of 590 days in space over the course of his four spaceflights. He orbited the Earth 3,520 times, traveling 93.3 million miles in low-Earth orbit.

Follow Expedition 75:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 75 Crew
Station Commander: Pyotr Dubrov 
Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Anna Kikina, Sergey Teteryatnikov

Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Flight Engineer: Joshua Kutryk

NASA Flight Engineers: Anil Menon, Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney 

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.

Image Credit: NASA/JSC/D. Pettit
Release Date: Oct. 27, 2026

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