“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this. 10 minutes ago on the #ISS #aurora”

 

Those were the words of astronaut Reid Wiseman who is currently aboard the International Space Station. He posted the photo above to Twitter last night at 6:04 pm ET (19 Aug 2014).

If you enjoy incredible photos of our planet from space, be sure to follow Reid on Twitter where he actively shares the world as he sees it from the ISS.

An aurora (astralis in the south and borealis in the north) is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic) regions, caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere (thermosphere). The charged particles originate in the magnetosphere and solar wind and, on Earth, are directed by the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere. [source]

For more incredible photos of auroras, click here.