November 14, 2001
The stars above are ancient, but your chance to be here is exquisitely temporary.
Auroras Over Both Earth Poles
Birthday · November 14, 2001
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APOD published November 14, 2001. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Auroras in the north and south can be nearly mirror images of each other. Such mirroring had been suspected for centuries but dramatically confirmed only last month by detailed images from NASA's orbiting Polar spacecraft. Pictured above, a time-lapse movie shows simultaneous changes in aurora borealis, at the top, and aurora australis, at the bottom. A cloud of electrons and ions moving out from the Sun on October 22 created the auroras. The solar explosion that released the particles occurred about three days earlier.