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Jul 4, 2015
Aurora Australis
Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Schwarz (South Pole Station)
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Aurora Australis
Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Schwarz (South Pole Station)
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Not fireworks, these intense shimmering lights
still danced
across Earth's night skies late last month,
seen here
above
the planet's geographic south pole.
The stunning
auroral
displays were triggered as
a coronal mass ejection blasted from the Sun days earlier
impacted the magnetosphere, beginning a
widespread geomagnetic storm.
The six fisheye panels
were recorded with digital camera and battery
in a heated box to guard against -90 degree F
ambient temperatures of the
long winter night.
Around the horizon are south pole
astronomical observatories,
while beyond the Aurora Australis stretch the stars
of the southern Milky Way.