APOD: 2026 August 27 – Colorful Aurora over an Icelandic Waterfall
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APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 27 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Colorful Aurora over […]
APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation: What a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second exposure by the photographer in April 2025. Seeing an aurora is on many people’s bucket lists. But it is not easy. It requires high solar activity , dark and clear skies, and usually a viewing location at high latitude. That makes the northern lights more easily seen than the corresponding southern lights , simply because there is less landmass in the Southern Hemisphere, especially around the Antarctic Circle . Auroras are caused by charged particles from the solar wind that are captured by the Earth’s magnetosphere and guided by the magnetic field to a region close to one of the poles, where they collide with gas particles in the atmosphere . Different colors indicate interactions with different gases at different altitudes , like oxygen ( red and green ) and nitrogen ( blue and pink ).
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Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 August 26 – JWST Images The Lion’s Head Nebula