                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2023 April 19
   Two people dressed in red coats are standing on a snowy landscape with
    bare trees. Above, many aurorae of different colors appear, with some
    stars visible in the background. Please see the explanation for more
                            detailed information.

                         Auroral Storm over Lapland
      Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (Starry Earth, TWAN)

   Explanation: On some nights the sky is the best show in town. On this
   night, auroras ruled the sky, and the geomagnetic storm that created
   this colorful sky show originated from an increasingly active Sun.
   Surprisingly, since the approaching solar CME the day before had missed
   the Earth, it was not expected that this storm would create auroras. In
   the foreground, two happily surprised aurora hunters contemplate the
   amazing and rapidly changing sky. Regardless of forecasts, though,
   auroras were reported in the night skies of Earth not only in the far
   north, but as far south as New Mexico, USA. As captured in a wide-angle
   image above Saariselkä in northern Finnish Lapland, a bright aurora was
   visible with an unusually high degree of detail, range of colors, and
   breadth across the sky. The vivid yellow, green, red and purple auroral
   colors are caused by oxygen and nitrogen atoms high in Earth's
   atmosphere reacting to incoming electrons.

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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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