“The night of the cupola, the stars in space and the lights of the city on Earth compete to see who is brighter and more beautiful”
IT media Cnet reported on the 7th (local time) that Thomas Pesquet, an engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA), released a picture of the Earth’s surface taken from the ISS Cupola.
In this photo, taken by Peske from the ISS Cupola, orange light engulfs the Earth’s surface. He described the phenomenon as a battle between city lights and distant stars.
Astronomer Juan Carlos Munoz explained that the orange light was created by the emission of sodium atoms about 90 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. There is also a faint green band just above the orange band, which is caused by the activation of oxygen atoms.
ESA astronaut Peske is part of the 2021 SpaceX Crew-2 mission and is part of the NASA 65 probe. He described the photo as a difficult moment to capture because the ISS moved too fast. In fact, the ISS travels at over 17,000 miles and completes Earth’s orbit every 90 minutes.
Reporter Seo Hee-won, Electronic Newspaper Internet (shw@etnews.com)
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