The Aurora from Space     The aurora in space looks much similar like it does on the ground. The only difference is that when you are high enough up in space, you can see the entire oval ring instead of only a small portion of it from the ground. The aurora begins about 60 miles above the Earth's atmosphere and begins to fade as you get higher as you can see in this photo. This effect is because there are less particles higher up, thus less collisions and less light is emitted. This image is approximately 155 miles (250km) above earth. You can see the great height of the aurora and the altitude it covers. Intense auroras can be as low as 50 miles (80km) above the ground and pan up to 350 miles(600km)! photo taken from Mission to Geospace website photo taken from Mission to Geospace This image was taken high above the atmosphere so that you can see the whole shape of the oval.

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