Amazing Pic: ISS Flys Through Aurora

By Nancy Atkinson - April 5, 2010 at 10:03 AM UTC | Space Exploration
aurora-soichi.jpg

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What an

amazing pic

of the International Space Station "flying through" an

aurora

at orbital speeds of 28,000 kmh (17,500 mph)! Super-space-photographer and Tweeter

Soichi Noguchi

captured this spectacular image earlier today, taking advantage of some rare solar activity. "Fly through Aurora at 28,000kmh. Happy 1,000 tweets" Noguichi wrote on Twitter.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center

sent out a notice early this morning saying : "A geomagnetic storm began at 05:55 AM EST Monday, April 5, 2010. Space weather storm levels reached Strong (G3) levels on the Geomagnetic Storms Space Weather Scale."

And indeed, that solar activity created a picturesque backdrop to the

ISS

today! Wow!

Noguchi, a.k.a.

Astro_Soichi

on Twitter is setting a new standard for Twittering and Twitpics from space -- and photography, too. He and his Expedition 22 crewmates recently broke the record for the amount of images taken by an ISS crew. They snapped over 100,000 images of space and Earth during their accumulated six-month Expedition, bringing the number of pictures taken from the space station to a grand total of almost 639,000 images. With the new crew arriving at the ISS this past weekend, Expedition 23 is now officially underway.

Check out more of

Astro_Soichi's Twitter pictures on his TwitPic page.

. And here are more amazing space pictures.

Sources:

Twitter

,

NOAA

, Yahoo News

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com