Subj : Daily APOD Report To : All From : Ben Ritchey Date : Sun Dec 09 2018 03:39:25 Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2018 December 9 [2] Aurora Shimmer, Meteor Flash Image Credit & Copyright: Bjornar G. Hansen [3] Explanation: Some night skies are serene and passive -- others shimmer and flash. The later, in the form of auroras [4] and meteors, haunted skies over [5] the island of Kvaloya, near Tromso Norway on 2009 December 13. This 30 second long exposure records a shimmering auroral [6] glow gently lighting the wintery coastal scene. A study in contrasts, the image also captures the sudden flash of a fireball meteor from the excellent Geminid meteor shower [7] of 2009. Streaking past familiar stars in the handle of the Big Dipper [8] , the trail points back toward the constellation Gemini [9] , off the top of the view. Both auroras and meteors occur in Earth's upper atmosphere at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so, but aurora [10] caused by energetic charged particles from the magnetosphere [11] , while meteors are trails of cosmic dust [12] . Nine years after this photograph was taken, toward the end of this week, the yearly 2018 Geminids [13] meteor shower will peak again, although this time their flashes will compete with the din of a half-lit first-quarter moon [14] during the first half of the night. Free Download: 2019 APOD Calendar [15] Tomorrow's picture: hand over mars ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- < [16] | Archive [17] | Submissions [18] | Index [19] | Search [20] | Calendar [21] | RSS [22] | Education [23] | About APOD [24] | Discuss [25] | > [26] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [27] (MTU [28] ) & Jerry Bonnell [29] (UMCP [30] ) NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [31] . NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices [32] A service of: ASD [33] at NASA [34] / GSFC [35] & Michigan Tech. U. [36] ---------- Site notes: [1] archivepix.html [2] image/1812/GeminidAurora_Hansen1_850.jpg [3] mailto:big dot hansen at bgnett dot no [4] http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/auroras/ [5] http://spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01dec09.htm [6] ap150601.html [7] http://spaceweather.com/meteors/ gallery_13dec09_page3.htm [8] ap050218.html [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(constellation) [10] https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-auroras [11] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/multimedia/ magnetosphere-unlabeled.html [12] ap990219.html [13] https://in-the-sky.org/news.php?id=20181214_10_100 [14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase [15] https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1812/ApodCalendar2019v3_Dave.pdf [16] ap181208.html [17] archivepix.html [18] lib/apsubmit2015.html [19] lib/aptree.html [20] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search [21] calendar/allyears.html [22] /apod.rss [23] lib/edlinks.html [24] lib/about_apod.html [25] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=181209 [26] ap181210.html [27] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html [28] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ [29] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html [30] http://www.astro.umd.edu/ [31] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [32] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html [33] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [34] https://www.nasa.gov/ [35] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ [36] http://www.mtu.edu/ --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 (Windows/32) * Origin: FIDONet - The Positronium Repository (1:393/68) .