Aurora australis as seen across Australia
Here- we look at the best the natural phenomenon has to offer across the country.
Auroras occur when a stream of charged particles emitted from the Sun makes its way to Earth. During periods of high solar activity, sunspots form and produce coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These are like gusts of wind that can reach speeds of a few thousand kilometres per second and contain a massive amount of energy.
These CMEs interact with atoms in Earth’s magnetic field to cause auroras. Different atoms create different colours, the most common being red and green for oxygen, and green and blue for nitrogen. You can sign up for alerts about auroras from the Bureau of Meteorology HERE.
From Sunday, “The [Kp] numbers were off the dial during our daytime,” he said. “We knew it was going to happen and were just waiting for it to get dark and for the clouds to disappear, which luckily happened at about the same time, Garth told the Guardian. (Image: Garth Smith)
“During the strongest geomagnetic storm in the last decade, we in Tasmania missed the height of it on Mar 17 2015 due to complete cloud cover,” says Sophie. “We got the consolation prize the next night though and this photo was taken at 9:40 AEDT at Howden, near Hobart.” (Image: Sophie Fazackerley)
Sophie Fazackerley took this image of the aurora australis over Hobart, Tasmania on 15 March, 2015. “The range of colours was amazing, but they soon changed to mainly greens on the horizon with an interesting auroral form called a ‘patch’ – looking like a bright green cloud in the sky, and a proton arc to the right of the photo,” she said. (Image: Sophie Fazackerley)
Photographer Martin took this image of the aurora australis from Cape Schanck, Victoria. (Image: Martin Au)
The aurora australis from the South Island of New Zealand. (Image: Flickr/Beckerg)
The aurora australis, taken from Cantebury, New Zealand. (Image: Flickr/SeabirdNZ)
The aurora australis from Dunedin, New Zealand. (Image: Flickr/James Kirkus-Lamont)
The aurora australis taken from Tasmania on 18 March 2015. (Image: Tim Cooper)
18 March, 2015. Corinne Le Gall took this image the night after the main solar storm hit, from Jervis Bay, NSW. (Image: Corinne La Gall)
The aurora australis from Cape Schanck, Victoria. (Image: Martin Au)
The aurora australis, seen from Seven Mile Beach in Tasmania at 2.30 am on the 19th of March 2015. (Image: Andy Page)
One of the Expedition 40 crew members aboard the International Space Station recorded this colorful image of Aurora Australis on July 15, 2014. Achernar (just to the right of center) is the brightest and most easily recognizable star in this generally southward view. The orbital outpost was flying at an altitude of 225 nautical miles over a nadir point located at 51.6 degrees south latitude and 110.3 degrees east longitude. Two solar array panels are partially visible in an edge-on angle on the right side of the frame. (Image: NASA)
“With a bright moon rising (90.7% illumination), the aurora was strong enough to show on the horizon, with faint beams reaching high into the sky. The advantage of moonlight is that it lights up the foreground nicely,” says Sophie. (Image: Sophie Fazackerley)
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