‘Real photographer aboard’: Netizens after NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick shares ’aurora’ photo | See pic

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, aboard the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, shared an image of the ‘aurora’ on Sunday.

In a post on social media platform X, the US Navy test pilot and astronaut posted a picture of the moon with the caption, “Reds and greens from the aurora, as well as city lights, reflect off the service module solar arrays with the Milky Way core behind the space station.” He added, “The solar arrays and service module are bathed in a light horizon blue from a sun about to rise behind the camera.”

Giving technical details of the breath-taking shot, Matthew Dominick wrote, “Single image taken from a timelapse (will post timelapse video soon). 15mm, T1.8, 1.6s, ISO 6400, denoised.”

The image continues to stir social media as netizens were in a frenzy after seeing the latest photo. One user commented, “Another one for the books!" A second user commented, “I love how this reverses the star trails. Stars are points and earth is streaked. Stoked with your work in transforming how we see what you see from space!”

A third user said, “All the beauty we’ve not seen since the cupola (spacecraft) arrived…all because we didn’t have a real photographer aboard. Wonderful, Matthew, wonderful. That’s why the flight Everyday Astronaut was selected…. We’d see it all through the eyes of artists.”

Marvelling at the picture, a user tweeted, “Wow, how often do you get to see something like this from the space station?”

This post comes a day after Matthew Dominick shared a short timelapse video depicting the aurora—different layers of the atmosphere in green and orange—the San Francisco Bay Area from space, and theMilky Way core.

This image follows a series of pictures released recently while at the International Space Station (ISS). The overexposed city lights in the foreground add a touch of sparkle to the mesmerising image of the aurora. The most recent viral image has garnered over 1.94 lakh views in just a few hours and over 513 likes.