NASA Astronaut Captures the Northern Lights From Space — It's Unlike Anything We've Seen Before

Gazing at the heavenly Northern Lights from Earth is, in itself, an otherworldly affair but to have a glimpse of it from space is an experience limited to a few. NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew)  was fortunate enough to witness the aurora borealis from a lens rarely observed while on a mission to outer space in late 2024. He immortalized his memory with a brilliant capture of the view and a note detailing the efforts that enabled him to do so in a viral X post. 

The brief snippet presented a fleeting glimpse of the northern lights dancing on the surface of Earth as Dominick peered through the window of his spacecraft, SpaceX’s Endeavor Crew Dragon. The astronaut wrote, “Red and green aurora appear to dance in a timelapse as we fly by looking out Dragon Endeavour’s window with Dragon Freedom in view.” Dominick revealed that he and his co-astronauts captured several images to obtain the perfect snapshot of the aurora borealis from their spacecraft. 

Explaining the process, the astronaut said, “We shot a couple of thousand images yesterday trying to get the settings, lighting, and framing just right across multiple orbital nights because the aurora was amazing due to recent solar activity.” He claimed to have posted a single frame selected out of a series of about 300 images that were said to be taken at an interval of about 1.6 seconds. “Post-flight I think I want to render 4k/8k with maybe some exposure smoothing or other processing to smooth out the video between frames,“ Dominick detailed

In the video, the northern lights appeared as faint greenish hues emanating from the Earth’s surface from a distance. But as the spacecraft neared the exact locus of the natural event, the bright hues of red, blue, and green lights engulfed the window. The dancing lights appeared miniature from space but were conspicuously distinguishable even from the outer orbit. A spectacle in its own right. The astronaut also shared, according to him, “one of the best single frames” captured during the feat as he waited to undock from the ISS. 

“Peering out a Dragon Endeavor window that frames red and green aurora streaming by Dragon Freedom docked to the front of the International Space Station,” the astronaut said. On his rather elaborate note, Dominick shared that his time sleeping in Dragon Endeavor was pure bliss and acknowledged that the “insane” aurora event would not have caught their eye had they undocked already. “We take most of our images from the cupola, but sleeping here has been amazing. This is the view out the window this evening . . . I miss my family and friends but we would have missed today’s insane aurora if we had undocked today,” he added. 

While watching the breathtaking view, Dominick was accompanied by NASA astronaut Don Pettit and later by Crew-9 astronaut Nick Hague. The year 2024, which was marked as one of the hottest years, brought an abundance of opportunities to observe the otherwise rare northern lights. According to the British Geological Survey, peak solar activity occurred during the year 2024 resulting in aurora events much farther south than expected. Strong solar activity interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field creates spectacular displays of the northern and southern lights. 

You can follow @dominickmatthew on X for more updates.