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io9Watch This Brown Dwarf’s “Northern Lights”
Brown dwarfs are not quite stars. Some aspects of them resemble planets, like the fact that they have their own versions of “northern lights,” which can be seen from very far away. One of these distant auroras has been captured in the video above One of the major benefits to living on the Earth is … Continued
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Tech NewsNorthern Lights Over Newfoundland Make Me Happy to Be An Earthling
It’s Friday, and the end of a looong week of peering into the far reaches of our solar system and being astounded by what we found. But as much as we love Pluto, we don’t need to gaze billions of miles away to see incredible sights. We’ve got them right here on Earth. These stunning … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Astronaut Scott Kelly Had The Best View of Last Night’s Bonkers Aurora
An ultra-rare, ultra-gigantic geomagnetic storm last night had people seeing Northern Lights as far south as Georgia. But from his perch at the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly captured pretty much the most amazing aurora borealis shots ever. Kelly is spending the year on the ISS while his twin brother Mark stays behind on … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Watch for Incredible Northern Lights From Tonight’s Geomagnetic Storm
A category four geomagnetic storm is sweeping over the Earth today, and while that means all sorts of funky things for power and communications systems, it should also cause some seriously incredible lights in the sky. The storm is caused by a solar flare emitted this afternoon, as captured below by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. … Continued
By Chris Mills -
Tech News
The Northern Lights Are Even Better Seen From The ISS
If the aurora happens in space, you probably can’t call it the Northern Lights. But names aside, this shot of an aurora (and the ISS bathed in moonlight) sure is pretty. The picture was taken by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti a few nights ago. Cristoforetti is on the ISS for six months as part of … Continued
By Chris Mills -
Tech NewsCitizen Scientists Are Helping Map the Aurora Like Never Before
The aurora borealis that took place on St. Patrick’s day was spectacular, but aside from being the strongest geomagnetic storm in a decade, there’s another reason it was special. It was the first time that thousands of citizen scientists tweeted about the aurora to help space weather scientists construct a detailed global map of the … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech NewsSploidAn electric green sky for St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day is debaucherous and sloppy and filled with drunkards decked in green. The Northern Lights are beautiful and stunning and light up the sky in a wonderful hue of green. Naturally, they’re made for each other. Or if not, they should be. Ignore the noise today and just watch this Northern Lights time … Continued
By Casey Chan -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Watch For the Aurora Tonight, Even If You’re In the South
If you’re like me, you’ve spent years heeding forecasters telling you that the northern lights will DEFINITELY be visible tonight—and then seeing nothing but boring old night sky. Tonight, summon your faith and give it one last shot: There’s a severe geomagnetic storm going on. Lead image: Marko Kääriäinen/CC According to the NOAA’s Space Weather … Continued
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Tech News
A week ago, while you were safely tucked up in bed, a group of NASA scientists up in Alaska were preparing to launch a rocket into the Northern Lights. The Auroral Spatial Structures Probe was a mid-sized rocket, launched 30 miles into the thermosphere to study the electromagnetic energy that heats the atmosphere during the … Continued
By Chris Mills -
io9
Four Rockets Fired Into An Aurora
In order to better understand the impact auroras have on Earth’s atmosphere, NASA launched four rockets carrying experiments were launched on January 26, 2015. This is part of a composite image of all four rockets, done in 30-second exposures. See the full image below. Image: NASA/Jamie Adkins Here’s how NASA describes the project: To help … Continued
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Tech News
How To Photograph The Northern Lights
One of nature’s most incredible phenomena are the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights. We’ve been photographing them in Iceland and we’re going to show you how to shoot them yourself. What are they? The Northern Lights are a natural light display in the sky, predominantly seen in Arctic regions. Geomagnetic storms … Continued
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Tech News
The Time Iceland Almost Killed Me
They say that if you don’t like the weather in Iceland, wait five minutes and it’ll change. Multiply that by mountains, glaciers and volcanoes and you’ve got a recipe for adventure. Or a close encounter of the near death kind. “Winter is coming,” they said. “They” being every local we spoke to in Iceland. “We’re … Continued
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Tech News
This Floating Glass Hotel Will Let You See Northern Lights in Luxury
If you dream of watching the Northern Lights in decadent style, then you should wait until 2017—when this wonderful, floating, snowflake-shaped hotel will be ready in the icy reaches of northern Norway. The creation of Dutch Docklands, which specializes in the construction of floating structures, the 86-bedroom Krystall hotel is planned to float in the … Continued
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Tech News
10 More Viral Photos That Are Actually Total Fakes
The internet can be a tough place to distinguish fact from fiction. Who has time to fact-check all those beautiful, weird, and sometimes horrifying pictures? Well, we do. Today we have ten more images you may have seen tossed around on social media recently. And all of them are lying to you. 1) Is this … Continued
By Matt Novak -
io9Television
An Occult History of the Television Set
The origin of the television set was heavily shrouded in both spiritualism and the occult, writes author Stefan Andriopoulos in his new book Ghostly Apparitions. In fact, as its very name implies, the television was first conceived as a technical device for seeing at a distance: like the telephone (speaking at a distance) and telescope … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Tonight’s Your Best Chance to See Northern Lights In Years
Millions of charged particles are rushing toward earth after a gigantic solar flare on Tuesday. Bad news for NASA’s latest mission, but good news for sky-watchers: Those charged particles also collide with the earth’s atmosphere to produce the ethereal-looking northern lights. Normally, northern lights, or auroras, are only visible at or near the pole, to … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
io9
Aurorae ignite the skies over Fairbanks, AK
This remarkable sequence of images was photographed last month by photographer LeRoy Zimmerman. The images were captured last month over the (surprisingly long) course of thirty minutes, and depict roughly 500 kilometers of aurora unfurling across a 150-degree vertical stretch of subarctic firmament. Sez Zimmerman: “I have never seen an active aurora stay in one … Continued
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io9
New Plan: Let’s All Move to Iceland
Green aurorae unfurl above Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier, in this spellbinding photo by French photographer Stéphane Vetter. Photo featured by kind permission of Stéphane Vetter Via NASA APOD points out a few more of the phenomena visible in this photo: On the far right is a long and unusual lenticular cloud tinged with green light … Continued
