Friday, September 12, 2014

APOD 1.3

Dubbed 'An Aurora Cupcake with a Milky Way Topping', this photo was made Astronomy Picture of the Day on September 9, 2014. This picture was captured by astrophotographer Göran Strand in the sky over Österstrund, Sweden. Unfortunately not actually a delicious sky cupcake, the actual cause of this event is double auroral ovals. The green auroras laid closer to the ground than the violet auroras above it, giving the event a cupcake-like image. To accentuate the utter beauty of the photo, the central band of the Milky Way galaxy is seen at the very top of the photo. These auroras were actually caused by a magnetospheric disturbance of Earth due to solar flares, which are becoming more frequent due to an extremely active sunspot. 

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