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Birthday · April 10, 2018

Dragon Aurora over Norway

April 10, 2018

The universe does not repeat itself. Every sunrise is unique, every snowflake singular, and every birthday yours alone.

Dragon Aurora over Norway

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APOD published April 10, 2018. Credit: Marco Bastoni. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

Behind the image

Dragon Aurora over Norway

Original APOD · April 10, 2018

What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal hole opened last month, a few days before this image was taken, throwing a cloud of fast moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth. Some of this cloud impacted our Earth's magnetosphere and resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at high northern latitudes. Featured here is a particularly photogenic auroral curtain captured above Troms� Norway. To the astrophotographer, this shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen appeared as a large dragon, but feel free to share what it looks like to you. Although now past Solar Maximum, our Sun continues to show occasional activity creating impressive auroras on Earth visible even last week.

Image credit: Marco Bastoni

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