The southern lights from space

Astronaut Ron Garan takes photos in space and posts them to Google+. This photo was taken yesterday, aboard the ISS, and shows the Southern Lights.

Real-time astronaut photos may be my favorite benefit of social media networks.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: Science

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux

You can tell it is the southern hemisphere because Orion appears “upside down”.
- http://www.facebook.com/coreline Chris Coreline
  
  nonsense sir, its clearly the northern hemisphere because otherwise the camera would be upside down, and that would be uncomfortable.
  - SamSam
    
    After you said that, I imported the photo into photoshop and flipped it upsidedown. I like it even better that way. It reminds me that, in space, there is no reason for the Earth to be “down.”
    - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
      
      After you said that, I imported the photo into photoshop and flipped it upsidedown. I like it even better that way. It reminds me that, in space, there is no reason for the Earth to be “down.”
      
      Well actually, when you think about it, in space, ‘down’ is the direction of the nearest source of gravity.Or maybe a vector of all the gravity acting on you. But I’d prefer to think of it as the direction you don’t want to head directly in for very long.
      - dw_funk
        
        It’s easier to just remember that the enemy’s gate is down.
Brainspore

I don’t care how much viral marketing D.C. does, nobody is gonna buy “Green Lantern” on DVD.
Lobster

Now that’s something.
xenphilos

That’s pretty damn cool.
http://nefariousnewt.blogspot.com NefariousNewt

Earth’s force field at work.
http://www.facebook.com/kkisser Keith Kisser

I saw that too! What’s great about these images, is, not only do we get to see them in real time form astronauts posting on Twitter and G+, but the quality of even cheep digital photography is really amazing. I wish we would go back tot he Moon so we could take new, high def pictures of Earth. One day maybe…
- http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
  
  Actually the quality of the still film cameras that Apollo took to the moon were quite good. That said, I wish we could (would?) go back again, also. And I agree with you about the awesomeness of real-time, high quality digital pics from the astro/cosmonauts.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Southern Lights my eye. That’s actually the Terran Defense League’s Antarctic defense screen flaring under the impact of a Lqaddian Horde meson cannon.
Eric Wolf

All I can say is “Earth Shields Up”
and “damn, that looks awsome”
Teirhan

i know this is a photo but my brain keeps telling me it’s a video still from a VHS copy of some mid-90s sci fi movie.
http://twitter.com/drawitbetter Tony Canepa

This is amazing stuff to add to my circles. BoingBoing, any chance of getting a list of Google+ folks you find interesting? It’s been a little tough tracking down good content.
Guest

WOW! :D
Chris Burgess

I have some friends who say they have seen the southern lights down in Southland, New Zealand. Not sure if they are ever visible up in Otago.
JMB98115

oh, aurora australis?
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

Hey, when I look at photo details under actions at the scrapbook photos page, it says the image is 1600×1065, but the largest copy I can find is only 912×607.

What gives? This is my first look at Google+, and I’m far from impressed. It’s 2011; surely we can share pics of any size by now.
- http://twitter.com/matwat Matt Watson
  
  link to 1600×1065
  
  https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3Z9gIjfOKU8/TnI8QHCr-fI/AAAAAAAAAPE/Z5zviV1e8PM/aurora.jpg
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Thanks, but how do you get to the original, for future reference?
    
    I tried to find it for like ten minutes to no avail.
ocker3

I suddenly have a hankering to take my special lady on a Southern Lights adult cruise, anyone know how to find such a thing??
- Chris Burgess
  
  Ask an i-site http://www.invercargill.org.nz/AboutInvercargill/iSITEVisitorCentre.aspx or maybe something in Hobart.
chur

About 8 years ago, I saw the aurora from Christchurch, only red though,
friends about 50k south in Ashburton saw a much better display, greens
and blues and much brighter. I think that was during a really big solar
flare though, only time my Mum could remember seeing it and she’s lived
there 50+ years