The stunning green glow in this image comes from an aurora at Glacier National Park in Alaska. Astrophotographer John Ashley took this image from Livingston Mountain Range in Glacier National Park On Oct. 20. The image also includes an Orionid meteor shining through a cloud cover. The Orionids occur every October and are caused by leftover dust from Halley’s Comet streaking through Earth’s atmosphere.
“I only saw about a dozen meteors before clouds blotted out the sky at 1:30 AM, but four were bright and one meteor left a brief smoke trail,” Ashley wrote in an email to Space.com.
Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun get caught in our planets magnetic field and pulled down near one of our poles.
The variety of color is the result of different electromagnetic reactions with oxygen and nitrogen. To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by Space.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive. (By Nina Sen-SPACE)
SPACE.com/John Ashley – Astrophotographer John Ashley took this image from Livingston Mountain Range in Glacier National Park On Oct. 20, 2014.
