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Astronaut Photography of Earth - Display Record

ISS017-E-11632

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	File Name	File Size (bytes)	Width	Height	Annotated	Cropped	Purpose	Comments
View	ISS017-E-11632.JPG	37464	640	437	No	No
View	ISS017-E-11632.JPG	120718	540	355	No	Yes	NASA's Earth Observatory web site

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	File Name	File Size (bytes)	Width	Height	Annotated	Cropped	Purpose	Comments
Request	ISS017-E-11632.JPG	339930	1000	658	No	Yes	NASA's Earth Observatory web site
Request	ISS017-E-11632.JPG	383540	3072	2098	No	No

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Electronic Image Data

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Identification

Mission: ISS017 Roll: E Frame: 11632 Mission ID on the Film or image: ISS017
Country or Geographic Name: ASIA
Features: PAN-NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS
Center Point Latitude: Center Point Longitude: (Negative numbers indicate south for latitude and west for longitude)
Stereo: (Yes indicates there is an adjacent picture of the same area)
ONC Map ID: JNC Map ID:

Camera

Camera Tilt: High Oblique
Camera Focal Length: 180mm
Camera: N2: Nikon D2Xs
Film: 4288E : 4288 x 2848 pixel CMOS sensor, RGBG imager color filter.

Quality

Film Exposure:
Percentage of Cloud Cover: 10 (0-10)

Nadir

Date: 20080722 (YYYYMMDD)GMT Time: 182401 (HHMMSS)
Nadir Point Latitude: 48.9, Longitude: 92.2 (Negative numbers indicate south for latitude and west for longitude)
Nadir to Photo Center Direction:
Sun Azimuth: 7 (Clockwise angle in degrees from north to the sun measured at the nadir point)
Spacecraft Altitude: 181 nautical miles (335 km)
Sun Elevation Angle: -21 (Angle in degrees between the horizon and the sun, measured at the nadir point)
Orbit Number: 3413

Captions

Polar Mesospheric Clouds over Central Asia

Polar mesospheric clouds (also known as noctilucent, or “night-shining” clouds) are transient, upper atmospheric phenomena that are usually observed in the summer months at high latitudes (greater than 50 degrees) of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They appear bright and cloudlike while in deep twilight. They are illuminated by sunlight when the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the darkness of Earth’s shadow.

This astronaut photograph of polar mesospheric clouds was acquired at an altitude of just over 200 miles (about 321 kilometers) in the pre-dawn hours (18:24:01 Greenwich Mean Time) on July 22, 2008, as the International Space Station was passing over western Mongolia in central Asia. The dark horizon of the Earth appears at the bottom of the image, with some layers of the lower atmosphere already illuminated by the rising Sun. The higher, bluish-colored clouds look much like wispy cirrus clouds, which can be found as high as 60,000 feet (18 kilometers) in the atmosphere. However noctilucent clouds, as seen here, are observed in the mesosphere at altitudes of 250,000 to 280,000 feet (about 76 to 85 kilometers).

Astronaut observations of polar mesospheric clouds over northern Asia in June and July are not uncommon. The crew of the International Space Station acquired this image and many others in support of research for the International Polar Year. Some researchers link increased observations of these clouds to changes in global climate. Polar mesospheric clouds have been the subject of extensive observation and research from space by the Swedish satellite Odin, launched in 2001, and more recently by NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite system beginning in 2007.

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