Astronomy Picture of the Day - Colorful Aurora over New Zealand

NASA ^ | 16 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Tristian McDonald

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Sometimes the night sky is full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass, South Island, New Zealand one-night last week. Instead of a typically calm night sky filled with constant stars, a busy and dynamic night sky appeared. Suddenly visible were pervasive red aurora, green picket-fence aurora, a red SAR arc, a STEVE, a meteor, and the Moon. These outshone the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and both of its two satellite galaxies: the LMC and SMC. All of these were captured together on 28 exposures in five minutes, from which this panorama was composed. Auroras lit up many skies last week, as a Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun unleashed a burst of particles toward our Earth that created colorful skies over latitudes usually too far from the Earth's poles to see them. More generally, night skies this month have other surprises, showing not only auroras -- but comets.

[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]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[metmom]

This looks new. Aurora Dashboard Information

swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental

Tips on Viewing the Aurora

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/tips-viewing-aurora

[MtnClimber]

Thanks for the links.

[null and void]

They don't have the aurora borealus in New Zealand.
They have the the aurora australus!

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Some latitudes have all the fun.

[Seruzawa]

Very beautiful, that sleeting death a few miles overhead.

But mainly I’m wondering who or what this “STEVE” is.

[metmom]

It’s called *aurora australis*.

[DannyTN]

That’s a yellow alien invasion force. The yellows are much worse than the greens or the greys.

They are master psycholical manipulators. By painting the sky magenta with streaks of yellow, nobody really thinks it’s a threat.

And they are brilliant strategists. Having studied Earth’s game of Risk, they know invading New Zealand they can take over Down Under and have a very defensible position to grow their forces, before they break out and capture the world.

[No name given]

Gorgeous.

[No name given]

They have the Aurora Australis, the southern lights.

[metmom]

We missed this last one because of the #$(*&%(&$ clouds!!!!!!!!!

[No name given]

Aka the southern lights.

[metmom]

That, too.

[null and void]

You get an A+ in this edition of 'spot the trick question/true trick statement'!

Had someone merely called me on the "error", I would have told them highlight the whitesmoke font right under that post for the answer key, and they would only have gotten a C...

[null and void]

See post #17, you also earned an A+.

[MtnClimber]

STEVE - Known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancements (STEVEs), these luminous light-purple sky ribbons may resemble regular auroras, but recent research reveals significant differences. A STEVE’s great length and unusual colors, when measured precisely, indicate that it may be related to a subauroral ion drift (SAID), a supersonic river of hot atmospheric ions thought previously to be invisible. Some STEVEs are now also thought to be accompanied by green picket fence structures

[MurrietaMadman]

Yeah, didn't it used to also be referred to as Northern lights?

How does that work for New Zealand?