Astronaut Clicks Amazing Sunrise Reflecting Off Space Station's Solar Arrays
The image was shared by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough on his Twitter handle.
While browsing through Twitter, I stumbled upon a really pretty image of a sunrise that was truly out of this world, literally.
Good morning Earth! Captured this orbital sunrise as the sun¡¯s rays are reflecting off of the solar arrays and new IROSA for the first time on this orbit to give @Space_Station solar energy to run this amazing orbiting laboratory. pic.twitter.com/5bUgb20zOF
¡ª Shane Kimbrough (@astro_kimbrough) July 12, 2021
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The sunrise was captured by astronaut Shane Kimbrough aboard the International Space Station. The image shows the star along with a thin sliver of sunlight that¡¯s highlighting at the beautiful curve of our planet.
The image was shared by Kimbrough on his Twitter handle. While sunrise and sunsets are not that big of a deal on the International Space Station -- they see 16 of these every day, what makes this one special is the reflection of the sun, on the ISS window and their appearance on the new IROSA (ISS Roll-Out Solar Array).
He shared the image while stating, ¡°Good morning Earth! Captured this orbital sunrise as the sun¡¯s rays are reflecting off of the solar arrays and new IROSA for the first time on this orbit to give @Space_Station solar energy to run this amazing orbiting laboratory.¡±
In case you didn't know, IROSA was recently installed aboard the International Space Station after a series of spacewalks that eventually completed in June this year. The solar array essentially allows the ISS to generate more power than what it did before, to allow more experiments to be conducted onboard.
NASA
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The image was shared just a day after Richard Branson created history by bringing humanity a step closer to space tourism while also becoming the first billionaire along the way to experience space and its zero gravity.
Shane Kimbrough was aboard the third SpaceX human crew that was blasted off to space on April 30, this year. He was accompanied by NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, along with Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and France's Thomas Pesquet. Pesquet has also created history by becoming the first European to launch in a commercial crew capsule.
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