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What's Outer Space like?
03 Aurora Gallary
An aurora appears when highly charged electrons from the solar wind from the Sun moves along Earth's magnetic field and interacts with Earth's atmosphere several hundred kilometers above the ground. The altitude is approximately the same as the altitude where the International Space Station's (ISS) orbits, thus the Space Shuttle and astronauts sometimes fly through the middle of an aurora. Astronaut Donald Pettit said he felt that he could almost touch the aurora with his own hands since it looked so beautiful and really close.
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Photo of an aurora taken at the Andoya Rocket Range, in Norway. Due to the influence of Earth's magnetic fields, an aurora can only be seen near Earth's North and South Poles. The aurora, as seen from the ground, is like a curtain that spreads throughout the night's sky.
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The Aurora Borealis as photographed from the ISS. You can see a red aurora overlapping a green aurora. The colors of an aurora depends on the composition of the atmosphere, so the color changes at different altitudes. (Photo by Astronaut Pettit, the ISS Expedition 6 Crew)
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A vividly green aurora spreads over Canada. In this photo, the borderlines within the aurora can be clearly observed. In the lower left portion of the image, the lights from the Canadian towns can be seen.
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When this photo was taken during a sunset, the beauty of seeing a green aurora and a rainbow coloring Earth's atmosphere was breathtaking.
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