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.

                               2020 January 5

                          A Starry Night of Iceland
                Image Credit: Stephane Vetter (Nuits sacrees)

   Explanation: On some nights, the sky is the best show in town. On this
   night, the sky was not only the best show in town, but a composite
   image of the sky won an international competition for landscape
   astrophotography. The featured winning image was taken in 2011 over
   Jkulsrln, the largest glacial lake in Iceland. The photographer
   combined six exposures to capture not only two green auroral rings, but
   their reflections off the serene lake. Visible in the distant
   background sky is the band of our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda
   galaxy. A powerful coronal mass ejection from the Sun caused auroras to
   be seen as far south as Wisconsin, USA. As the Sun progresses away from
   its current low in surface activity toward a solar maximum a few years
   away, many more spectacular images of aurora are expected.

                     Tomorrow's picture: jupiter tumult
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
                NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

--- hpt/lnx 1.9.0