Astronaut picture ISS066-E-86969 taken aboard the ISS on Dec. 6, 2021. (Image credit: NASAs Earth Observatory)An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has actually recorded a spectacular picture of a crescent moon above Earth as the last light of the setting sun shines through the different layers of the atmosphere. The image was taken Dec. 6, 2021, by an unnamed member of the Expedition 66 team– a group of 7 astronauts from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Russias State Space Corporation, Roscosmos. The image was taken using a digital camera as the ISS passed over the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand at an altitude of around 262 miles (422 kilometers). NASAs Earth Observatory launched the image on Dec. 31, 2021. “This view uses a symbolic end to the year 2021 and an appearance towards NASAs next goal for human-crewed expedition,” Earth Observatory representatives said in a statement.Related: 12 amazing Landsat satellite images of Earth from spaceThe photo includes a multicolored orbital sunset that fades from orange near Earths surface area to dark blue at the boundary of space. The various colors belong to the very first 4 layers of the atmosphere: the troposphere, between absolutely no and 7.5 miles (12 km); the stratosphere, in between 7.5 and 31 miles (50 km); the mesosphere, between 31 and 50 miles (80 km); and the thermosphere, between 50 and 440 miles (700 km), according to NASA.The different colors are the outcome of a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, called after the 19th-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh. In this process, electromagnetic radiation, such as visible light, is spread by particles smaller sized than its wavelength, such as air molecules. (What we see is the light of those spread wavelengths.) Each layer of the atmosphere has a various density of gas particles, suggesting the scattered light is a different color in each of those layers.Originally released on Live Science.
