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Credit & Copyright: Stan Richard
Explanation:
Early last Sunday morning stars were not the only lights in Iowa
skies.
The northern lights also shone from the heavens, extending
across the midwestern USA and
other locations not often
graced with auroral displays.
The wide-ranging auroral activity was triggered as a
coronal
mass ejection - an
energetic cloud of particles blasted outward from
the
Sun a few days earlier - collided with
planet Earth's magnetosphere.
Alerted to conditions
ripe
for aurora, photographer Stan Richard
recorded this aparition over Saylorville Lake, near
Des Moines.
Bright planet Mars in the constellation
Aquarius is above the
horizon near the center of the eastward-looking view.
While the colorful rays seem to end just above the water, they are
actually at altitudes of 100 kilometers
or more.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: aurora - coronal mass ejection
Publications with words: aurora - coronal mass ejection
See also:
- APOD: 2024 December 8 Á Aurora around Saturns North Pole
- APOD: 2024 October 16 Á Colorful Aurora over New Zealand
- APOD: 2024 October 13 Á Aurora Timelapse Over Italian Alps
- Northern Lights, West Virginia
- Aurora Australis and the International Space Station
- APOD: 2024 June 26 Á Timelapse: Aurora, SAR, and the Milky Way
- APOD: 2024 June 12 Á Aurora over Karkonosze Mountains