2023 July 30 - Spiral Aurora over Icelandic Divide
Channel: APOD Podcast
Date: 30/07/2023

In today's image, we see a spiral shaped aurora over Iceland. The aurora are caused when charged particles from our Sun strike Earth's magnetic field and are funneled along toward the magnetic poles. Larger events from the Sun known as Coronal Mass Ejections could cause significant damage to electronics and our electric grid if they strike Earth directly. This last happened in 1859 in what is known as the Carrington Event.

This YouTube channel is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230730.html.

I also provide lecture videos to accompany the free OpenStax Astronomy textbook (https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy/) on another channel. They are avilable here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMahwAGxKuWldeQ_qaIj8c0i7qbfyfLj4 or through this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXFGlTeF86MsI1HqBcuqKQ

Note: All commentary is created by me and is not necessarily approved or sanctioned by APOD or NASA.