Aurora over Iowa

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

From the Astronomy picture of the day site, we find a picture from last December. It is Aurora over Iowa.

Aurora Over Iowa
Credit & Copyright: Stan Richards (NightSkyEvents.com) Explanation: Last Thursday evening, stars were not the only lights in Iowa skies. Spectacular northern lights also shone from the heavens, extending across the midwestern USA and other locations not often graced with auroral displays. The wide-ranging auroral activity was triggered as a large solar flare - an energetic cloud of particles blasted outward from the Sun a few days earlier - collided with planet Earth's magnetosphere.