Noctilucent clouds, also known as “night shining” clouds imaged by Chris Hadfield. Image credit: NASA
What a perspective! Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield captured this stunning image of noctilucent clouds above the Pacific South Ocean on January 5th, 2013. Also known as “night shining”, or noctilucent clouds, they form at the edge of much larger polar mesospheric clouds.
In this photograph, the Sun is below the horizon, and the ground is dark. Those clouds are still partially illuminated by the Sun, and so we see them with this ethereal wispy structure. Hadfield used a Nikon D35 camera with a 400 mm telephoto lens. At the very bottom of the image, you can see the pale orange color of the stratosphere.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield (did I mention he’s Canadian?) launched to the International Space Station on December 19, 2012 to participate in Expedition 34. He has been returning wondering pictures and sharing them on Twitter and Google+.
Original Source: NASA Earth Observatory
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