January Aurora Over Norway
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