auroral beads tagged posts

Aurora mysteries unlocked with NASA’s THEMIS mission

The photograph was taken east of Saskatoon on winter solstice in 2015 with a 81% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon. It was processed with PixInsight to remove streaks caused due to an accidentally nudged tripod during exposure while attempting to retain realistic star shapes and colors. The exposure time was 2.5 seconds. Credit: Alan Duffy

A special type of aurora, draped east-west across the night sky like a glowing pearl necklace, is helping scientists better understand the science of auroras and their powerful drivers out in space. Known as auroral beads, these lights often show up just before large auroral displays, which are caused by electrical storms in space called substorms...

Read More