Posted on 01/26/2016 9:37:28 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: Why would the sky look like a giant fan? Airglow. The featured intermittent green glow appeared to rise from a lake through the arch of our Milky Way Galaxy, as captured last summer next to Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA. The unusual pattern was created by atmospheric gravity waves, ripples of alternating air pressure that can grow with height as the air thins, in this case about 90 kilometers up. Unlike auroras powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction. More typically seen near the horizon, airglow keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.
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[Credit and Copyright: Dave Lane; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt]
While the world goes to hell, the heavens remain aloof, majestic, and awe-inspiring. Thanks for sharing.
The constellation map overlay making this about astronomy instead of meteorology. The reference to auroras also points out that you’re not seeing that here. Atmospheric gravity waves are completely different than gravity waves in the cosmological sense, by the way. The former is caused by air pressure, not gravity.
This one is really cool.
Thanks for posting!
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