Astronaut releases orbital timelapse of aurora fly-through
Digital Reporter
Monday, August 25, 2014, 3:31 PM - Here's yet another great perspective of our planet from space, this time from European Space Agency astronaut Alex Gerst.
His colleague aboard the International Space Station, NASA spaceman Reid Wiseman, gets the lion's share of media mentions thanks to his antics on social media, usually.
But Gerst has his own moments in the spotlight, this time thanks to some camera work when the station flew through an aurora earlier this week.
We flew right through a massive #aurora after last week's solar mass ejection https://t.co/eD661bPTTR
— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) August 24, 2014
The aurora was caused by charged particles from a solar mass ejection grazing our atmosphere. It's a common enough sight for I.S.S. astronauts, but the station doesn't usually have the chance to fly through them.
Back to Wiseman, like most astronauts he seems to love Twitter, but he's been loving the Vines too. Here's his six-second take on an aurora:
In fact, Wiseman is the first astronaut to Vine from space.
Here's his orbital debut from a few months ago:
RELATED: Six awesome selfies (taken in space).
