The US space agency, NASA, spends about $3 billion (£2.4 billion) a year on the space station program, with the remaining funding coming from international partners, including Europe, Russia and Japan. ISS studies have investigated human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology. Research conducted aboard the ISS often requires one or more of the unusual conditions present in low Earth orbit, such as low-gravity or oxygen. The International Space Station has been continuously occupied for more than 20 years and has been expended with multiple new modules added and upgrades to systems The International Space Station is travelling at 17,000 miles per hour as it orbits the Earth every 90 minutes - which can make a good photograph difficult.

'So when we excite them with lasers to correct the blur in astronomical we're using space stuff to observe space.' 'Fun fact about the sodium layer: those sodium atoms come from meteors. Airglow – this natural emission from different atoms – is completely invisible to the naked eye, but can be seen in long exposure shots. He added: 'A bit above the sodium layer you can see green light from oxygen atoms. 'By firing lasers with that exact same colour we can create artificial 'stars' which can be used to measure and correct atmospheric turbulence, yielding sharp images,' Mr Munoz tweeted.

The most prominent feature of the image is the orange band stretching around the planet, made up of excited sodium atoms 55 miles above the planet.Īstronomer Juan Carlos Munoz retweeted the picture shared by Pesquet, saying the orange band was a natural emission from sodium atoms.Īstronomers can use this sodium layer to create an 'artificial star' that acts as a laser guide for observing space - compensating for movements in the atmosphere. The new picture was taken from the cupola of the ISS, with city lights and light from distant stars equally visible. Pesquet, a French astronaut, is on his second mission to the space station as part of the European Space Agency, and arrived as part of the SpaceX Crew-2 mission in April.ĭuring his time on the station he has become famed for his exceptional and breathtaking photography of the Earth below the space station.

Earth view from space station