From space, the aurora is a crown of light that circles each of Earth’s poles. The IMAGE satellite captured this view of the aurora australis four days after a record-setting solar flare sent plasma flying towards the Earth.
On Saint Patrick’s Day, the Suomi NPP satellite acquired a view of the aurora from above while citizen scientists were busily collecting shots from below.
A bright mass of charged particles loops from the Sun’s outer atmosphere during a solar storm on May 23, 2010. Taken two hours apart, the pair of images shows the stream of particles moving away from the Sun during a coronal mass ejection.