NASA astronaut Jessica Meir captured a panoramic view of auroras on Earth from orbit whereas sheltering along with her fellow astronauts in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as a pair of cosmonauts tried to repair a regarding air leak on the Worldwide House Station.
What’s it?
Final week on Friday, June 5, the 4 Crew-12 astronauts on the ISS took shelter within the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that carried them to the station. They did this as a precaution as cosmonauts tried to repair a leak in a tunnel resulting in a Russian module.
However Meir made good use of her non permanent environment, capturing actually unbelievable photographs (and even video) of auroras over Earth from the Dragon.
“There’s a lot occurring proper now on the @Space_Station, however happily we’re all secure and witnessed a spectacular southern aurora present yesterday because of a latest photo voltaic occasion,” Meir mentioned in a publish on X.
A timelapse view from our @SpaceX Dragon of the spectacular southern aurora seen in yesterday’s publish, a results of a latest photo voltaic occasion. Versus the earlier aurora I’ve seen, this one danced and snaked its means straight beneath us, placing on fairly a present. I’m in awe of this… pic.twitter.com/ReztjH3x9HJune 7, 2026
Why is it unbelievable?
Whereas these photographs, and the video that Meir shared are beautiful on their very own, the context behind their seize is fascinating. Meir wasn’t simply within the Dragon capsule for enjoyable, her and the remainder of the Crew-12 astronauts had been instructed to shelter within the capsule because the cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, tried to repair an ongoing leak on the station.
They hunkered down “out of an abundance of warning,” based on NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens, whereas two cosmonauts went out on a spacewalk to aim to repair an air leak on the station.
This has been a persistent, ongoing leak attributable to cracks within the PrK switch tunnel which connects to the Russian Zvezda service module. However whereas Russia’s area company Roscosmos manages the leak with occasional repairs, based on Stevens, the leak began presenting as extra of a problem not too long ago.
