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Credit & Copyright: Ken Williams
Explanation:
The setting had been picked out -- all that was needed was an aurora.
And late last August,
forecasts
predicted
that an otherwise beautiful night sky would be lit up with
auroral green.
Jumping into his truck, the astrophotographer approached his secret site --
but only after a five hour drive across the rural
Upper Peninsula
of Michigan.
What he didn't know was that his luck was just beginning.
While setting up for the image, a
proton arc -- a rare type
of aurora -- appeared.
The red
arc lasted only about 15 minutes, but that was long enough to capture in a 30-second
exposure.
As the name indicates,
proton
arcs
are caused not by
electrons but
by more massive
protons that
bombard
the Earth's atmosphere following an
energetic event on the Sun.
In the featured
image,
the yellow lights on the horizon are the city lights of
Marquette,
Michigan,
USA.
The blue and yellow rocks in the
Lake Superior foreground
are lit by a
LED flashlight.
Also captured, to the left of the red proton arc, was the band of our
Milky Way Galaxy.
APOD Editor to Speak: Saturday, August 8 at
Keweenaw Science & Engineering
Festival
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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: 2025 January 7 Á A New Years Aurora and SAR Arc
- 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