Credit & Copyright: Stephane Vetter
(Nuits sacrees)
Explanation:
It was all lined up even without the colorful aurora exploding overhead.
If you follow the apex line of the recently deployed monuments of
Arctic Henge in
RaufarhÆfn in northern
Iceland from this vantage point,
you will see that they point due north.
A good way to tell is to follow their apex line to the line connecting the end stars
of the
Big Dipper, Merak and Dubhe, toward
Polaris, the bright
star near the north
spin axis of the Earth projected onto the sky.
By design, from this vantage
point, this same apex line will also point directly at the
midnight sun
at its highest point in the sky just during the
summer solstice of Earth's northern
hemisphere.
In other words, the Sun will not set at
Arctic Henge during the summer solstice
in late June, and at its
highest point in the sky it will appear just above the
aligned vertices of this modern monument.
The above image was taken in late March during a
beautiful auroral storm.
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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
Publications with words: aurora
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