Southern Lights From Space Station: Astronaut Tweets Amazing Picture Of Aurora Australis (PHOTO)

Now here's a rare 220 mile-above earth view of the aurora australis, the southern hemisphere's counterpart to the northern lights.

Astronaut Ron Garan tweeted this amazing photo of the southern lights from aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday, one of the last images he sent before he returned to earth on Friday.

PHOTO BELOW

In the photo, the constellation Orion is visible in the left corner of the image. Garan tweeted:

@ Astro_Ron : One of the last pictures I took #FromSpace #Aurora - southern lights - dancing with #Orion 9/14/11 18:48 GMT http://t.co/L7CfjJCp

Garan and two of his colleagues, Alexander Samokutyayev and Andrei Borisenko, Russian cosmonauts, landed safely Friday in Kazakhstan. Three astronauts currently remain on the International Space Station.

Garan, a prolific space tweeter, last month took a stunning photo of a shooting star from the ISS.

Love the aurora? Click here for another amazing -- albeit more terrestrial -- photo of the phenomenon.

LOOK: The southern lights, as seen from the International Space Station:

Comments

[Markus Rsli]

04:26 AM on 09/17/2011

wow, would love to see more pics.

[Trekkiefandom]

02:53 AM on 09/17/2011

What a beautiful natural occurrence. I wish I could be up there sometimes, this being one of them.

[BuckyJamesDio]

08:41 PM on 09/16/2011

There's a term for this. It rhymes with "ucking fawesome".

[MISTERUNCONVENTIONAL]

08:01 PM on 09/16/2011

That's just the laser on the Death Star malfunctioning.

Again.

[intotheabyss]

07:19 PM on 09/16/2011

Pictures like this always remind me of how much there is to appreciate in nature if we didn't have to be burdened with so much bs from the self important greedy few who manage to screw things up for the rest of us. So much squandered potential. How advanced might we be if we weren't so bogged down with killing each other?

[fds]

04:49 PM on 09/16/2011

"Amazing Picture Of Southern Lights ... FROM SPACE"

Yes, as though capturing this image from space had been previously impossible or undone until now.

What an idiotic headline.

[pdxist]

06:22 PM on 09/16/2011

The headline made no claim of that. There are some bad headlines on here, but your criticism doesn't make sense. "Amazing photos of Grand Canyon" doesn't mean "First ever photos of Grand Canyon."

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

04:18 PM on 09/16/2011

God is especially magnificent! Isn't he?!

[[snicker]]

[Maggot451]

11:25 PM on 09/16/2011

Uhhh, yes he is.

[iLdoRight]

06:57 AM on 09/18/2011

Our Creator's intelligence and abilities are far beyond our ability to comprehend them.

[EvilBananaPt]

04:15 PM on 09/16/2011

outter view

[EvilBananaPt]

04:15 PM on 09/16/2011

Outer view

[20thCentury Man]

03:42 PM on 09/16/2011

Have conservatives called for drilling on southern lights yet? Or privatizing it?

[forpeace]

03:44 PM on 09/16/2011

20thCentury Man
---------------
LOL!!

Not yet.

They are still busy de.str.0yi.ng earth!

[SUPPERMAN]

03:33 PM on 09/16/2011

Thanks for the photo Capt. Kirk

[Trekkiefandom]

02:54 AM on 09/17/2011

LOL. thank you for that.

[MikeDu]

02:58 PM on 09/16/2011

Instead of 'from space' perhaps the phrase 'low earth orbit' would be more appropriate.

[20thCentury Man]

03:02 PM on 09/16/2011

When does one get to space?

[fds]

04:52 PM on 09/16/2011

When Earth's gravitation is no more important than Neptune's to the object's trajectory.

[ceez]

02:42 PM on 09/16/2011

like!

[HLL]

02:38 PM on 09/16/2011

Beautiful. This Earth is miraculous. Can't wait for the human race to wake-up and protect it ☮

[ceez]

02:42 PM on 09/16/2011

or die and keep it safe

[CharlesW299]

03:35 PM on 09/16/2011

My money is on your version...

[CrazyCarl]

04:50 PM on 09/16/2011

Right on... humanity is truly a cancer on this planet. The thing is, we have the ability to change that.

[USisLiberal]

02:37 PM on 09/16/2011

Wow. To me that puts the precarious nature of our planet into a scary perspective. But for our rather thin atmosphere, the surface of the earth would be bombarded with a steady stream of "shock and awe" like waves of deadly radioactive particles.

Space is a death-zone. We're lucky to have this little planet.