October 30, 2022
The story of your birthday began billions of years before calendars existed, in furnaces of light and clouds of dust.
Night on a Spooky Planet
Birthday · October 30, 2022
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published October 30, 2022. Credit: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What spooky planet is this? Planet Earth of course, on a dark and stormy night in 2013 at Hverir, a geothermally active area along the volcanic landscape in northeastern Iceland. Triggered by solar activity, geomagnetic storms produced the auroral display in the starry night sky. The ghostly towers of steam and gas are venting from fumaroles and danced against the eerie greenish light. For now, auroral apparitions are increasing as our Sun approaches a maximum in its 11 year solar activity cycle. And pretty soon, ghostly shapes may dance in your neighborhood too.
Image credit: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées)