Northern Lights from the Stratosphere

Northern lights shine in this evening skyview from planet Earth’s stratosphere, captured on January 15. The single, 5 2nd exposure was made with a hand held digicam on board an plane above Winnipeg, Canada. At some level of the exposure, terrestrial lights beneath leave brilliant trails along the route of motion of the speeding plane. Above the more distant horizon, crammed with life particles accelerated along Earth’s magnetic field at the planet’s polar regions excite atomic oxygen to scheme the realizing novel of Aurora Borealis. The aurora’s attribute greenish hue is generated at altitudes of 100-300 kilometers and crimson at even elevated altitudes and lower atmospheric densities. The brilliant glow of faint stars along the plane of our Milky Procedure galaxy arcs via the evening, whereas the Andromeda galaxy extends this northern skyview to extragalactic residence. A diffuse impress of Andromeda, the closest substantial spiral to the Milky Procedure, can stunning be seen to the upper left.