NASA Astronaut Donald Pettit Captures Stunning Auroras from ISS | Watch Video

NASA Astronaut Donald Pettit Captures Stunning Auroras from ISS: NASA astronaut Donald Petit has broadcasted a video depicting the fathomless green aurora from space. The nine-second-long footage he shared on social media platform X aboard the International Space Station (ISS) captures an intense green glow emanating from the aurora.

Pettit came to the ISS in September of the previous year with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.

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What are auroras?

Aurora are those beautiful lights seen at the North and South Poles. At the Northern Pole, it is called aurora borealis or Northern Lights.

Similarly, if you are at the South Pole, much of the light phenomenon will be called an aurora australis, or the southern lights. Such lights are only visible at night.

According to National Geographic, the most current auroras occur when the solar wind is at its fiercest peak. The solar wind is always present but the state of the solar weather changes on a daily basis. Solar winds actually are the stream of ions constantly flowing from the surface of the sun.

Flying over aurora; intensely green. pic.twitter.com/leUufKFnBB

— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) January 6, 2025

Who is Donald Pettit?

Donald Pettit was chosen by NASA in 1996. He has a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Oregon State University and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona.

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He formerly worked as a staff scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, according to NASA.

He was also part of the Synthesis Group, a presidential commission chaired by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Tom Stafford that assembled moon return technology, said a NASA website.

He served as NASA Science Officer for Expedition 6 in 2003, controlled the robotic arm for STS-126 in 2008, and was a Flight Engineer for Expedition 30/31 in 2012, in which he spent more than one year with the International Space Station.

Pettit is presently a flight engineer and crew member of the Expedition 72 aboard the orbiting laboratory, where he is expected to spend about 6 months carrying out science experiments and maintaining the space station.

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