Photo Credit: Ivar Gudmundsson
This beautiful picture of an aurora was captured by Ivar Gudmundsson of Iceland. It's a wonderful shot that captures the true sense of awe and magnificent beauty of this natural phenomenon. Ivar has more beautiful pictures of the Northern Lights on his website. I highly recommend them. Thanks Ivar for sharing with us!
The different colours you see in an Aurora come from different gases being ionized when interacting electrically with the particle stream from the sun. High up; 400 km up and higher, hydrogen and helium bring us the blue and purple colours. Oxygen present over 300 km up will glow with a red light. Further down, about 100 to 300 km above the Earth, the yellow-green glow comes from oxygen again. Sometimes you can also see a red glow at the bottom of the auroral "curtain". That red glow comes from nitrogen present in our tenuous atmosphere, about 100 km up.
The Northern Lights of September 30th appeared as far south as the northern U.S. and southern Canada. We have an opportunity perhaps again tonight. If you are near the country, or lucky enough to be in it after bedtime tonight you may be in for another show of our Northern Lights.
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