• Astronaut Andreas Mogensen posted two amazing photos of Earth.
• In his caption, he explained that taking pictures of our planet from space.
• When sunlight is absorbed, it heats up the planet.
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Astronaut Andreas Mogensen posted two amazing photos of Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on Instagram. In his caption, he explained that taking pictures of our planet from space can be challenging due to the presence of clouds, which can be frustrating.

“Clouds cover an immense area of our planet every day (which can make photographing the Earth frustrating at times) and play an important role in shaping the Earth’s climate. Sunlight that hits the Earth, is either absorbed by the Earth or reflected back into space.

When sunlight is absorbed, it heats up the planet. Hence, when more sunlight is reflected back into space, there is less energy to heat the Earth,” the astronaut wrote.

“Clouds are one of the primary features that reflect sunlight back into space, together with snow and ice-covered ground. Thus, the amount of cloud cover and the amount of ground covered by glaciers, snow, and ice determine how much sunlight is reflected into space and thus, how much energy is available from the sun to heat the Earth. This balance between absorbed and reflected sunlight determines the energy balance of the Earth and is important for understanding Earth’s climate,” Mogensen added.

He shared this post three days ago, and it has garnered nearly 9,000 likes. It has also sparked a range of comments from people.

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