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"Red sky at night, sailor's delight": That's one of the oldest sayings in the book when it comes to weather prediction, but this picture adds a new twist. The red sky is an aurora, seen from above by astronauts on the International Space Station. And the weather that's causing this phenomenon is space weather from the sun.
Auroras arise when electrically charged particles from the sun interact with atoms in the upper atmosphere, sparking emissions of light at various wavelengths. The displays are most likely to be visible around Earth's magnetic poles, where the interaction is strongest. The sun has been going through an upswing of activity over the past couple of months, which has generated a colorful series of northern and southern lights.
North or south, the most common shade of auroral light is green. That's the wavelength that's typically emitted when solar particles mix it up with oxygen atoms. But if there are lower-energy collisions with oxygen atoms or nitrogen atoms, the emissions edge toward the reddish end of the spectrum. That's what's happening in this picture, captured on Monday. You should be able to make out the space station's solar panels toward the upper left corner of the photo.
Space weather can create disruptions for satellite communication systems as well as electric grids on Earth, but so far the most noticeable effect from this year's solar storms has been a string of glorious auroras. We weathered the latest geomagnetic storm overnight, and SpaceWeather.com is offering up a selection of snapshots — including this red-and-green stunner from Russia's Kola Peninsula.
To learn more about the colors of the aurora, check out this "Causes of Color" explanation. And if you live in northern or southern climes, there's always a chance of seeing the lights for yourself. Last night, the aurora was visible from Minnesota, Germany and Poland in the north, as well as New Zealand in the south. The University of Alaska at Fairbanks provides this handy-dandy online guide to aurora-watching.
More auroral glories:
- Fly over the southern lights
- Beautiful blasts from solar storms
- Northern lights caught on video
- Southern lights are sweeter in space
- From U.S. to Paris with the northern lights
- Month in Space: Still more beautiful blasts
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
That is an awe-inspiring picture. Nice.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
What a view!!
awesome! M:)
stay classy mother earth
Nice. Gotta catch this when I'm on my own computer.
such a view may or may not be worth 220k (redit to add the extra 2, inflation ya know) to a space tourist, but you gotta admit, it would make for one darn nice marketing poster for the commercial space sector!...meanwhile, the science to be gleaned from this is exciting, speaking of science I found a new iss/commercial science related site yesterday...probably worth a cosmic log article... http://www.iss-casis.org/ and finally I would like to note that a few posters have been saying the equivalent of the shuttle blueprints are long gone...not so, this was also said of the saturn five rocket...some kinda myth my freeeinds...in fact the sat five blueprints are for sale online (bing it yourself) and for xrists sake (and sa--kee as well) nasa does catalog all that stuff for posterity, the dod keeps it for reference (not to mention the currenly operating dod mini space shuttle production line) AND the patent copyright and trademark office squirrels it all away by their very nature..so quit saying we ain't got the intellectual kahanus to refurbish, rebuild or completly re-engineer the space shuttle...we do and it is an out right fib to say we do not have the blueprints...we do....as for shut down production lines, well, whats so bad about NEW (again) american jobs??????...to top it all off, a good project manager could have the tanks and shuttles ready for a july 4th launch, if that is what a mandate allowed for a good focused project manager to do...lolly gaging is one thing, we see it in every industry today...note how wally world can toss up a new store and stock it in 2 or less months but once in operation it can take over a year to remodel it...good project managers can do what needs to be done (please do not hold wally world up as the model thought), naysayers and politicians get mowed over in THEIR path (the path of good project managers)...bad project mangers go around whining and compromising....sorry for the off topic rant guys, just wanted to clear up a misconception thats been propagated lately. God forbid some one testifies to congress that we can't build shuttles cause we lost the recipe. After all, they'd probably believe it.
Beautiful.
SImply stunning. Nature at its best.
I still want to be an astronaut when I grow-up!
Wow!
Quite a view thay got huh?!! fantastic!
I wish the auroras could be seen on many more places on earth like Alexandria, VA.
Then they would not be special.
If they could you might not be able to use a computer.
Dear Bryan:
That sounds better than taking a sledge hammer to the computer.