CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Eclipses may be wondrous, but nothing beats seeing the northern and southern lights from space.That’s the word Wednesday from a pair of NASA astronauts living aboard the International Space Station for the past six months. Astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway told The Associated Press that the space station’s position prevented them from seeing totality during last week’s solar eclipse, but they still enjoyed a partial eclipse. They said they’ll try to catch next week’s lunar eclipse, too. “We’re hoping for the best. It should be pretty awesome,” Hathaway said. Meir said the best cosmic shows are auroras. The sun is coming off its busy season, making the northern and southern lights more dramatic and brilliant, she noted. After one especially large blast of plasma from the sun, “the green dancing aurora” appeared right beneath them instead of off in the distance near the poles, she added.
“It looked like a snake making its way right beneath us and that was a really extraordinary one,” said Meir, the space station’s commander. “You could see the green light bouncing off the white outside exterior of the space station.”Meir has also taken special pleasure in whipping up culinary delights in orbit, donning a space cat-adorned apron while sampling some of the station-grown mustard greens and kale. She joined crewmate Anil Menon, wearing a chef’s toque, for his first cooking episode of “Chez ISS” this week.
