← Another date

Birthday · August 27, 2026

Colorful Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall

August 27, 2026

Here’s to you, and all the wonder still ahead.

Colorful Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall

APOD published August 27, 2026

Victor Lima Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260827.html

A little universe, just for you

Your date.
Ready to give.

Choose a greeting

Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed

Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.

Choose an image from another year

Your celebration date stays the same. Each image keeps its actual publication date.

Change the year

Selected image source ↗ APOD published August 27, 2026. Credit: Victor Lima Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

Behind the original result

Colorful Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall

Original APOD · August 27, 2026 ↗

Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.

Read the archived explanation

What a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second exposure by the photographer in April 2025. Seeing an aurora is on many people's bucket lists. But it is not easy. It requires high solar activity, dark and clear skies, and usually a viewing location at high latitude. That makes the northern lights more easily seen than the corresponding southern lights, simply because there is less landmass in the Southern Hemisphere, especially around the Antarctic Circle. Auroras are caused by charged particles from the solar wind that are captured by the Earth's magnetosphere and guided by the magnetic field to a region close to one of the poles, where they collide with gas particles in the atmosphere. Different colors indicate interactions with different gases at different altitudes, like oxygen (red and green) and nitrogen (blue and pink). APOD's main NASA site is moving : From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod

Image credit: Victor Lima Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explore August 27 in other years · 32 APOD entries, 1995–2026

Updated · APOD entries through