NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

2023 July 30 - Spiral Aurora over Icelandic Divide


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In today's image, we see a spiral shaped aurora over Iceland. The aurora are caused when charged particles from our Sun strike Earth's magnetic field and are funneled along toward the magnetic poles. Larger events from the Sun known as Coronal Mass Ejections could cause significant damage to electronics and our electric grid if they strike Earth directly. This last happened in 1859 in what is known as the Carrington Event.


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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.


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NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the DayBy Robert M Wagner