Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Whale of an Aurora over Swedish Forest

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 22 Mar, 2022 | Image Credit & Copyright: Göran Strand

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun earlier this month, throwing a cloud of fast-moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth. Part of this cloud impacted our Earth's magnetosphere and, bolstered by a sudden gap, resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at some high northern latitudes. Featured here is a particularly photogenic auroral corona captured above a forest in Sweden from a scenic perch overlooking the city of Östersund. To some, this shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen might appear like a large whale, but feel free to share what it looks like to you. The unusually quiet Sun of the past few years has now passed. As our Sun now approaches a solar maximum in its 11-year solar magnetic cycle, dramatic auroras like this are sure to continue.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[Seruzawa]

Looks more like a bird than a whale.

[MtnClimber]

Yes. Looks like a giant hummingbird eating a cheeseburger.

[CopperTop]

Green demon..

Or a butterfly with a Martian head.

They said that crap'd come back on me later.. d;^)

[Repeal The 17th]

Looks like a butterfly, not a whale.
Surprised Dogs @ “dramatic auroras”.

[Sirius Lee]

Nope. Looks like a flying crayfish.

[wbarmy]

Dark Phoenix. She’s coming back to life.

[M_Continuum]

Amazing. Thank-you

[Lurker]

Wow!

L

[MtnClimber]

I did not even know crayfish could fly. Do they do it like a flying fish?

[sunny bonobo]

Cool image, but nowhere near reality. This was taken with a wide angle/fisheye lens, imparting extreme, I repeat extreme distortion. No way to know what it actually looked like.

[flaglady47]

What a beautiful pic in #2 !!!!!

[Paul R.]

Photo art.

I gotta admit though, if I ever actually saw something like that, I’d probably figure it was a Vorlon from 10 million years in the future, come to visit...

[Red Badger]

WOW!......................................

[Red Badger]