新西兰上空的绚烂极光

新西兰上空的绚烂极光

Colorful Aurora over New Zealand
Image Credit & Copyright: Tristian McDonald

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.

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新西兰上空的绚烂极光
影像提供与版权: Tristian McDonald

说明: 有时候，夜空充满惊喜。以上星期新西兰 南岛的林迪斯隘口的夜空为例，通常满布恒星的宁静夜空，忽然变得非常动态而色彩也很缤纷。夜空在很短的期间，相继出现了泛红的极光、泛绿的「栅栏」极光、红色的稳定极光红弧（SAR）、STEVE、一颗流星和月亮。它们的亮度，甚至盖过我们银河系的中心及它的2个伴星系：大麦哲伦星系（LMC）和小麦哲伦星系（SMC）。这些突然出现的景象，被摄影者在5分钟期间用28张照片记录下来，并据以建构出这张全景图。在上星期，极光照亮了许多地方的夜空，因为太阳释出的日冕物质抛射，把大量的粒子喷向地球，为离地球两极颇远的低纬度地区天空带来了绚丽的极光。对更广阔的地区来说，本月的夜空还有其他惊喜，因为除了极光之外，还可看到彗 星。

拼图挑战: 每日天文学拼图
明日的图片: open space