APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Dragon Aurora over Norway
Explanation: 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 .
| Date | April 10, 2018 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit & Copyright: Marco Bastoni |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |



