Camera-Wielding Station Crew Captures Cool Aurora Image

A fresh crew settled in this week at the International Space Station, where this amazing photo of the aurora borealis was captured by an unidentified member of the 24th expedition to the frontier outpost.

Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and two American astronauts -- Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock -- are in the midst of their first full week on the station, where they joined commander Alexander Skvortsov, and flight engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko. The new arrivals will become the core of the Expedition 25 crew when Skvortsov, Kornienko and Dyson-Caldwell return to Earth in September.

Auroras are natural displays of light that result from the emission of photons in the Earth's upper atmosphere. They occur during collisions with solar wind particles and create curtains of colorful light in the planet's polar regions. Green lights are the result of the emission of ionized oxygen atoms and red or blue lights result from the emission of nitrogen atoms.

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, are named for the named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas.