Explanation:
Northern Lights,
or aurora borealis, haunted
skies
over the island of Kvaløya, near Tromsø Norway on
December 13.
This 30 second long exposure records their shimmering
glow gently lighting the wintery coastal scene.
A study in contrasts, it also captures the sudden flash of
a fireball meteor from
December's excellent
Geminid meteor shower.
Streaking past familiar stars in the handle of the
Big Dipper, the trail points back
toward the constellation Gemini, off the top of the view.
Both aurora and meteors occur in Earth's upper atmosphere at altitudes
of 100 kilometers or so, but
aurora are
caused by energetic charged particles from the
magnetosphere,
while meteors are trails of cosmic dust.
digg_url = 'http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091219.html'; digg_skin = 'compact';
