Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Sun May've Belched Plasma, But the Sky Looked Gorgeous [Image Cache]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5609916/the-sun-mayve-belched-plasma-but-the-sky-looked-gorgeous

The Sun May've Belched Plasma, But the Sky Looked GorgeousLast week's geomagnetic storm produced some wild photos of aurora borealis, otherwise known as the Northern Lights. Thankfully Flickr users were on hand to shoot the effects of the sun's expelled plasma, like this one seen here.

This particular photo, shot by Shawn Malone from LakeSuperiorPhoto.com, shows the aurora borealis over the Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan. My absolute favorite though is Ian Diamond's, who was out shooting in Quebec, Canada.

The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory Ahead telescope at NASA shot an impressive HD video of the sun's ejection of plasma, which chucks 10 billion tons of the charged gas into the air. Over the course of three and a half days, the gas soared the 93 million miles from the sun to the Earth, resulting in some amazing affects only seen by those living in the Northern parts of the world. [National Geographic via Boing Boing]

Image Credit: LakeSuperiorPhoto