Astronaut Thomas Pascott, from the European Space Agency was in space activity with his crew when charged particles from a solar storm from the sun reached Earth and met the top of our planet's atmosphere.
The photos of this exciting encounter in particularly bright colors he managed to take and post on social media for the benefit of the entire public and the views are spectacular and beautiful.
Thomas and his friends in the spaceship, Photo: Thomas Pesquet
In fact the unusual lighting is due to an encounter between the charged particles coming out of the sun during a solar storm and moving towards the earth.
When the particles reach the Earth's region they collide in its magnetic field which deflects them to the poles where the charged particles meet with atoms in the ionosphere, the top of the Earth's atmosphere and thus their energy bursts out in a spectacular and special light show configuration.
Another angle, Photo: Thomas Pesquet
In a Twitter tweet, the astronaut wrote: "We were on a mission when we got an amazing aura show over North America and Canada. It appeared in the form of spikes even longer and taller than our point in orbit and we passed right over the center of this ring of light.
It is important to note that this is a cyclical phenomenon that also causes the Northern Lights phenomenon.
In fact, the sun has an activity cycle of about 11 years in which there are stages in which the sun's activity passes points of peak and eruption of solar storms that also affect the earth.
The view from the spacecraft, Photo: Thomas Pesquet
Because these eruptions can affect space-sensitive communications systems such as communications satellites as well as even electrical devices on Earth, in the event of a particularly large solar storm, the scientific world monitors and investigates these storms to allow different countries to prepare for these eruptions.
In fact, from the moment of the eruption until reaching the Earth, 24-48 hours pass, so if there is an earlier warning, it will be possible to prepare for them and protect sensitive devices better.
It is important to note that despite much research and although the phenomenon has been known to the scientific world for centuries, there are still many scientific controversies and riddles in the field of solar activity.