The Northern Lights from space! A NASA astronaut shot a stunning video

The aurora borealis, a stunning display of natural light, is mostly only visible from Earth. But the lucky astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been given a unique view of this spectacle - with Earth in the background.

The amazing video footage shows a bright green stream of thin light covering thousands of kilometers across our planet. In the foreground is a cone-shaped Boeing Starliner capsule that was originally supposed to return to Earth, MailOnline writes.

The video was shot by NASA's Matthew Dominick aboard the ISS, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of 400 km above sea level. "Slow-motion video of the aurora borealis behind the Starliner, taken from the Dragon window with Butch and Suni in the Starliner window. Their flashlights illuminate the cabin," Matthew captioned the video.

Dominic has been aboard the ISS since early March, when he traveled aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. Astronauts on the ISS have their own personal internet connection, meaning they can post on X, send emails, and more. Posting a photo of the northern lights from space on X, Dominic wrote: "We've been looking at the aurora borealis from the dome windows a lot lately. Starliner was doing some tests today, so we decided to check it out from the Dragon windows."

The aurora is created by perturbations in the Earth's magnetosphere due to the flow of particles from the Sun and is usually centered around the Earth's magnetic poles, which is why it is known as the northern or southern lights.

Although it is unclear from the clip exactly where the ISS was at the time, it is known that the ISS moves around our planet in a circle. The video also shows how the small square window of the Starliner is brightly illuminated by brilliant flashes of bright light. These are the flashlights operated by NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who traveled to the ISS aboard the Starliner on June 5 and arrived the next day.

Wilmore and Williams were only supposed to stay on the ISS for a week, but ongoing problems with the Starliner mean they are unable to return home for now and must stay longer than planned. Five different leaks have been discovered in the Starliner's propulsion system, which is supposed to propel the ship through space during its return to Earth. NASA says that now the Starliner will return to Earth no earlier than Saturday, June 22 - more than a week later than originally planned.

"The additional time allows the team to complete departure planning and operations, while the spacecraft remains authorized for emergency crew return scenarios within the framework of flight rules," NASA and Boeing said in a statement.

Earlier, OBOZ.UA reported that a solar storm with the highest level of radiation over the past 12 years was recorded on video on Mars.

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