Russian Cosmonaut Shares Video Of 'Space Guests' But They Are Not Aliens

Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner captured some of the spectacular views of Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and his new footage of auroras featured an incredible surprise: five bright lights on the horizon which he called 'space guests.'

They are not aliens but likely to be the satellites and it is so stunning to look at. The most probable culprit is the Starlink satellites launched on Tuesday (August 18) by SpaceX.

Vagner shared the video and tweeted as, "Space guests, or how I filmed the new time-lapse. The peak of aurora borealis when passing over the Antarctic in Australia’s longitude, meaning in between them. However, in the video, you will see something else, not only the aurora." Here is the video.

Space guests, or how I filmed the new time-lapse.

The peak of aurora borealis when passing over the Antarctic in Australia’s longitude, meaning in between them. However, in the video, you will see something else, not only the aurora. pic.twitter.com/Hdiej7IbLU

— Ivan Vagner (@ivan_mks63) August 19, 2020

In another tweet he wrote “5 objects appear flying alongside with the same distance. What do you think those are? Meteors, satellites or…? The frames were captured 1 per sec and later assembled in a video with 25 frames per sec rate. Meaning, the real observation time is 52 sec."

Vagner also said that he has sent the video to Roscosmos management, Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash), and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences for further analysis.

The officials of Roscosmos retweeted the video of Vagner on Twitter with a caption, “An interesting and at the same time mysterious video made by the cosmonaut of Roscosmos Ivan Vagner from the International Space Station.”

Roscosmos spokesperson Vladimir Ustimenko said in the TASS report that, "It is too early to draw conclusions before our Roscosmos researchers and scientists at the Russian Academy of Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences  explain us what they think."

According to a recent blog post by NASA, Vagner's work on the station has involved maintenance on its orbital plumbing system as well as exploring ways to improve Earth photography techniques. Anatoli Ivanishin a Russian scientist and American commander Chris Cassidy are also working along with Vagner.