Astronaut shares his view of the northern lights as seen from the International Space Station
What do you usually see when you look out the window? A concrete jungle? French astronaut
Thomas Pesquet has you beat there. He sees things in real life that most of us never will. The great thing for us is that he captures and shares what he sees on his social media feeds. And trust us when we say, his Instagram feed is literal #goals. Pesquet recently shared this spectacular view of the dazzling northern lights, as seen from space.
Since being shared, the picture has been "liked" nearly 30,000 times on
Instagram and over 15,000 times on
Twitter. It has been retweeted over 6,500 times. In response, one person even shared a view of the aurora from Earth on Twitter.
The colourful streaks of lights are a result of collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth's atmosphere.
The lights are usually seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as Aurora Borealis in the north and Aurora Australis in the south.
The French astronaut has been sharing a series of stunning pictures from his time in space. Take a look at 5 of our favourites:
1. Behold the gorgeous blue gradients of a sunrise
2. This snowy landscape looks more like abstract art
3. Mars? Nope, that's the Sahara desert as seen from space
4. The astronaut took this picture while "flying towards the sunrise." The result is magical
5. If you're going to take a selfie - it might as well be in space
Pesquet has been living aboard the International Space Station since November 2016. The 39-year-old astronaut was launched into space for a six-month Proxima mission as a flight engineer for Expeditions 50 and 51. He is scheduled to return to Earth in May.
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