Astronaut shares photo of shooting stars, northern lights from Earth’s atmosphere

A unique look at shooting stars and the northern lights over Earth’s Northern Hemisphere last weekend were captured by NASA astronaut Christina Koch from the International Space Station.

Koch posted a photo - to Twitter from space - of the Quadrantid meteor shower, the first meteor shower of the year and decade.

The photo shows the bright green glow of the aurora borealis on the Earth’s horizon, but also a series of short white lines of meteors burning through the planet’s atmosphere.

She captioned the post, “Can you see shooting starts from space? Turns out, yes! The first meteor shower of the decade and we were lucky enough to catch it from the @Space_Station along with the northern lights. This is a composite image of a few of the #quadrantids as they blazed into the atmosphere.”

Can you see shooting starts from space? Turns out, yes! The first meteor shower of the decade and we were lucky enough to catch it from the @Space_Station along with the northern lights. This is a composite image of a few of the #quadrantids as they blazed into the atmosphere. pic.twitter.com/ETdMRK1d86

— Christina H Koch (@Astro_Christina) January 6, 2020

The Quadrantids peak during January each year, and according to NASA are one of the best annual meteor showers.

In December Koch set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman when she reached 289 days in space. According to NASA’s schedule, Koch will remain on the station until February.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson previously held the record for 288 consecutive days in space.