April 5th, 2010
Amazing Pic: ISS Flys Through AuroraWritten by Nancy Atkinson
What an amazing shot 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 new standard for Twittering and Twitpics from space. 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 accumulated six-month period Expedition, bringing the total 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.
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/04/05/amazing-pic-iss-flys-through-aurora/ |