What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection
occurred on our Sun five days ago, throwing a cloud of fast moving
electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth. Although most of this
cloud passed above the Earth, some of it impacted our Earth's
magnetosphere and resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at high
northern latitudes. Pictured above is a particularly photogenic auroral
corona captured last night above Grotfjord, Norway. To some, this
shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen might appear as a
large eagle, but feel free to share what it looks like to you. This
round of solar activity is not yet over -- a new and even more powerful
solar flare occurred yesterday that might provide more amazing aurora as
soon as tonight.
Image Credit & Copyright: Bjorn Jorgensen
http://www.nasa.gov/
No comments:
Post a Comment