This rare video was recorded by the International Space Station as its orbit passed 200 miles above eastern Australia and Antarctica on Sept. 11 2011.

The specacular sight was missed by those who could have seen it in Australia due to a cloudy night.

The aurora australis, like the aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere, occurs when ions in the solar wind collide with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere emitting light and creating the visible aurora.

Three of the astronauts who saw the amazing lights had returned Monday. NASA astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev, who had manned the International Space Station since April, landed southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan after 164 days in space.

Australia