Astronaut tweets series of spectacular northern lights photos from space

As if the view from 400 km above Earth isn’t stunning enough, astronauts have been enjoying a spectacular display of the northern lights this week.

Astronaut Scott Kelly — part of the One Year Mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko — took to Twitter to share the incredible view. One tweet read, “O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies. You were beautiful this morning!”

The northern lights are almost always occurring, but at extreme northern and southern latitudes (in particular around the North Pole).

This week’s display was precipitated when a coronal mass ejection (CME) reached Earth, triggering a weak geomagnetic storm.

Others — on the planet — were treated to a light show, too, though the view may not have been quite as spectacular as that from the ISS.

And good news: there is a chance that we could be treated to another display on Jan 22 and 23.

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