A Ghastly Green Shade On The Space Station Evokes Hallowe’en Spirit

Woah, is that home to six people in space now some sort of a ghoul? Here is a video of the International Space Station in an odd shade of … green. And no, it’s not because astronauts secretly painted the hull during their spacewalk this week.

What you’re actually seeing is a green laser shining on the space station as part of a test of next-generation communications technologies. Lasers have been used in successful tests to the Moon and the space station in the past year, hinting that perhaps there’s a faster way to transmit data than over traditional radio.

The clip was filmed at the European Space Agency’s optical ground station in Tenerife, Spain, on Oct. 8 as part of a social media event. Below, you can see a shot of the laser in action, aiming at the sky. More photos are here.