Dragon Aurora over Norway

Astronomy Picture of the Day · 2018-04-10 · NASA (public domain)

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Dragon Aurora over Norway — APOD for 2018-04-10

What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal hole opened last month, a few days before this image was taken, throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons , protons , and ions toward the Earth . Some of this cloud impacted our Earth's magnetosphere and resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at high northern latitudes. Featured here is a particularly photogenic auroral curtain captured above Troms Norway . To the astrophotographer, this shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen appeared as a large dragon , but feel free to share what it looks like to you. Although now past Solar Maximum , our Sun continues to show occasional activity creating impressive auroras on Earth visible even last week .

Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2018-04-10 — image & explanation courtesy of NASA (public domain), mirrored at Tukuk-OS for reading and search convenience.

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