Provided you know a matter or two about shutter speeds and apertures , aurora borealis can be the subject of some truly mind - bendingly outstanding photograph . But even by the exceptionally high standards of image showcasing the Northern Lights , this is particularly special .
The pic of a Brobdingnagian firedrake - shaped aurora was shoot in Iceland earlier this month by photographers Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng .
“ This iconic display was so enthralling that the photographer ’s mother ran out to see it and was captured in the foreground , ” NASA explains on theAstronomy Picture of the Dayblog .
Aurora borealis , know as the Northern Lights when they happen in the Northern Hemisphere , are n’t just a pretty good deal – they are the result of cosmic force journeying across the Solar System . They are because of solar particle spat out of the Sun ’s corona , its upper atmospheric state . When these solar fart give Earth and smash up into its magnetosphere ( two to three days after they leave the Sun ) , they bring out their vim and excite O and atomic number 7 in our upper standard pressure . The excitement causes ionisation of the atmospherical molecule and the loss of lightsome photons . Oxygen produces green and yellow light source , while nitrogen creates a red and dingy lightness .
We tend to only see them at Earth ’s most northerly and southerly points ( the Southern Hemisphere ’s break of the day is call the aurora australis ) because the excited particles are pull down by our planet ’s magnetic field lines that gather at the pole .
As for that dragon shape , well , that ’s just down to some salutary luck . Though , it ’s not difficult to see why people once thought the aurora were the saltation of anancestral spiritor cosmic God .
Earth experiences more auroral activity during solar storm , where the Sun ’s solar wind are specially plentiful . NASA ’s Picture of the Day web log mention that early February did not come along to have any macula , so numerous reports of aurora this calendar month are “ somewhat surprising " .
