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Monday, November 24, 2014

Aurora Outburst



Aurora Outburst

On Sunday night, a bright display of auroras erupted around the Arctic Circle. Ole Salomonsen photographed the outburst behind EISCAT's ionospheric radar in Tromsø, Norway:


"After a long day of photographing whales at sea, I was looking forward to relaxing in the evening, but Lady aurora invited me out, and I could not resist," says Salomonsen. "After quickly getting new batteries and memory cards for my camera, I went out hunting, this time for the magic emerald light. The entire sky was filled with majestic moving green auroras. At times there were 4 to 5 arcs stretching from east to west next to each other in the sky. This was really amazing to watch!"
Bright auroras are often caused by CME impacts, but there was no CME on Sunday. Instead, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth tilted south. This opened a crack in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in to fuel the display.

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