Hoping to expand our understanding of auroras and other fleeting atmospheric events, a team of space-weather researchers designed and built NORUSCA II, a new camera with unprecedented capabilities that can simultaneously image multiple spectral bands, in essence different wavelengths or colors, of light.
One of the most frigid places on the planet appears to be an ideal location to help protect humans living and working in the cold of outer space against radiation bursts from the sun.
Aurora Australis and star streaks over the South Pacific Ocean are featured in this photograph taken by one of the Expedition 31 crew members when the International Space Station was above a point on Earth located at approximately 40.7 degrees south latitude and 162.9 degrees west longitude.
For the first time, scientists have captured images of auroras above the giant ice planet Uranus, finding further evidence of just how peculiar a world that distant planet is. Detected by means of carefully scheduled observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the newly witnessed Uranian light show consisted of short-lived, faint, glowing dots.