Cloudy with a chance of glow: ⁣

⁣An aurora dances in Earth's atmosphere as the International Space Station (@ISS) soared 260 miles (418 km) above Utah during orbital nighttime. Auroras are brilliant ribbons of light weaving across Earth's northern or southern polar regions. These natural light shows are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares (explosions on the Sun) or coronal mass ejections (ejected gas bubbles). Energetic charged particles from these events are carried from the Sun by the solar wind.⁣

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This is your time to shine: Aurorasaurus.org is the first citizen science project that aggregates relatively rare sightings of the Northern and Southern Lights in order to improve real-time tracking and understanding of the beautiful phenomenon. The Aurorasaurus project allows the public (that’s you!) to enter their observations of aurora through their website, as well as on a mobile application platform, in order to better characterize their frequency, location, and rare visual characteristics. ⁣

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Image description: Earth’s surface is pictured below the aurora’s green haze, in an image taken from the International Space Station. Lights dot Earth’s surface from underneath a sheet of clouds. Portions of the space station are seen in the right hand corner of the image. ⁣

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Credit: NASA⁣

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08 November 2023