'Frosty' Aurora over Anchorage, Alaska
Astrophotographer Todd Salat: ". . . Caught a nice little aurora dancing over Anchorage, Alaska, last night for about 15 minutes and took this shot from our back deck at 12:30 am on November 25, 2025."
Auroras are produced when the Earth's magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color and complexity. [Wikipedia]
Earth auroras have different names depending on the pole they occur at. Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, is the name given to auroras around the north pole and Aurora Australis, or the southern lights, is the name given for auroras around the south pole.
Alaska is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is considered to be the northernmost, westernmost, and easternmost state in the United States. It borders the Canadian territory of the Yukon and the province of British Columbia to the east. It shares a western maritime border in the Bering Strait with Russia. The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas of the Arctic Ocean lie to the north, and the Pacific Ocean lies to the south.
#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Sun #Planets #Earth #Aurora #AuroraBorealis #NorthernLights #Magnetosphere #SolarWind #SolarSystem #Astrophotography #ToddSalat #Astrophotographer #Anchorage #Alaska #UnitedStates #STEM #Education
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