Key Highlights
- The astronaut of the ISS explains the intriguing sight of a bright dot spotted on Earth from space.
- Cristoforetti tweeted the images showing a distant white speck against a brown landscape and explained its origin.
An astronaut from the International Space Station (ISS) recently shared an intriguing sight of a bright dot spotted in the middle of a desert on Earth. The European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, tweeted while sharing three photos showing a distant white speck against a brown landscape.
Ms. Cristoforetti explained a bit about its origin in the caption. She said it is a concentrated solar power plant, one of the technologies to get renewable energy from the sun, with one of the tallest solar power towers in the world.
As per CNET, the bright dot was visible because of the Ashalim Solar Thermal Power Station that uses mirrors to focus sunlight to an 820-feet-tall tower in the Negev desert of Israel. This tower is treated as one of the tallest solar power towers in the world. It is good enough to create the noticeable dot of light that Ms. Cristoforetti noticed from the ISS.
She first flew to the Station in 2014 for her Italian Space Agency ASI-sponsored mission, ‘Futura,’ according to the website of ESA. Earlier this year, She was again launched on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft from Florida as part of Crew-4 to serve as lead for all US Orbital Segment (USOS) operations.
Meanwhile, a tweet from Ms. Cristoforetti has taken the internet by storm. One user commented on the post, “A light of hope for our environment.” Another said, “Difficult to see from your photos, but easier once zoomed in. I would bet it’s effortless to pick out in person, though. Probably sparkles like a star on Earth.” The third commented, “Very impressive.” “What a view!” said the fourth.
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