An unknown astronaut on the International Space Station recently captured a special image of the Earth in which two unrelated blue light balls shine in the Earth's atmosphere.
This photo taken from the International Space Station over the South China Sea on October 30, 2021 shows a pair of unrelated bright blue spots in the Earth's atmosphere. An astronaut on
International Space Station (ISS) took a unique image of the Earth from space, containing two strange blue lights that flashed in our planet’s atmosphere. This pair of dazzling eyes may look extraordinary. But in reality, they are the result of two unrelated natural phenomena that happen to occur simultaneously.
This photo was taken by an unknown member of the Expedition Unit 66 when the International Space Station crossed the South China Sea last year. The photo was released online by NASA Earth Observatory on October 9.
The first beam of light visible at the bottom of the image is a large-scale lightning strike somewhere in Gulf of Thailand . Lightning is often difficult to see from the International Space Station because they are often covered by clouds. But this particular impact took place next to a large circular gap at the top of the clouds, which caused lightning to illuminate the surrounding walls of the cloudy crater-like structure, creating a striking glowing ring.
The first blue spot is the result of a lightning strike illuminating a large bowl of uncovered clouds in the Gulf of Thailand.
The second blue spot is the result of particle moonlight scattering in the Earth's atmosphere.
The second blue spot that can be seen in the upper right corner of the image is the result of the twisted light from the moon. The direction of Earth's natural satellite relative to the International Space Station means that the light it reflected from the sun passes directly through Earth's atmosphere, which turns it into a bright blue spot with a blurry halo. According to the Earth Observatory, this effect is caused by some moonlight scattering out particles in the Earth's atmosphere.
Different colors of visible light have different wavelengths, which affects their interaction with atmospheric particles. Blue light has the shortest wavelength and is therefore most likely to scatter, which causes the moon to turn blue in this image. The same effect also explains why the sky appears blue during the day: because the blue wavelength of sunlight scatters the most and is more visible to the human eye.
You can also see the luminous artificial light network from Thailand in the photo. Other prominent light pollution sources in the image are emitted from Hainan Island , the southernmost in Vietnam and China, although these light sources are largely obscured by clouds. According to the Earth Observatory, an orange halo parallel to the curvature of the Earth is the edge of the atmosphere, which is often referred to as the "limb of the Earth" when viewed from space.
