Astronaut Captures Wondrous Photo of Red and Green Aurora From the ISS

Astronaut and photographer-extraordinaire Matthew Dominick has captured an amazing image of red and green aurora lights from the International Space Station.

The photo, shared by Dominick earlier this week, shows the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in the foreground as a spectacular aurora caused by heightened solar activity sparkles in the rest of the photo.

Dominick was testing out new camera lenses he had received in a cargo shipment to the station which included a T/1.8 Arri Zeiss 15mm lens for his Nikon Z9. The new lens appears to have paid off with the beautiful image receiving over a quarter of a million views on X (formerly Twitter).

“We received a cargo shipment this week with lots of cool stuff to include some new camera lenses,” Dominick writes on the platform.

“[I] spent a good part of the weekend with a 15mm, T1.8 lens. Made a whole bunch of timelapses. Still looking through 1000s of frames, lots of which have aurora but the Milky Way in this one stood out.”

The ISS resident shared a timelapse showing the Moon setting into streams of red and green aurora followed by a sunrise that lights up the Soyuz vehicle.

“The aurora have been amazing the past few days. Great timing for trying out a new lens that recently arrived on Cygnus,” adds Dominick.

Cygnus is an expendable American cargo spacecraft used for logistics missions to the ISS. It arrived last week with four tons of supplies including food and scientific gear.