Strange Night-Shining Clouds Captured in Space Station Photo

Delicate, shining threads of white seem alienlike against the darkness of space in a new image of a type of "night-shining" or noctilucent cloud taken from the International Space Station (ISS) and released today (June 25).

More specifically, these polar mesospheric clouds (a type of noctilucent cloud) were hovering above the Tibetan Plateau on June 13 when the photo was snapped from the ISS. The lower layers of the atmosphere are also illuminated in the new image, captured by the Expedition 31 crew, with the lowest layer, called the stratosphere, shown in dim orange and red tones near the horizon.
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