冰岛板块分界线上空的螺旋极光

2023年7月30日

Spiral Aurora over Icelandic Divide
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (Starry Earth, TWAN)

Explanation: Admire the beauty but fear the beast. The beauty is the aurora overhead, here taking the form of a great green spiral, seen between picturesque clouds with the bright Moon to the side and stars in the background. The beast is the wave of charged particles that creates the aurora but might, one day, impair civilization. In 1859, following notable auroras seen all across the globe, a pulse of charged particles from a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with a solar flare impacted Earth’s magnetosphere so forcefully that it created the Carrington Event. This assault from the Sun compressed the Earth’s magnetic field so violently that it created high currents and sparks along telegraph wires, shocking many telegraph operators. Were a Carrington-class event to impact the Earth today, speculation holds that damage might occur to global power grids and electronics on a scale never yet experienced. The featured aurora was imaged in 2016 over Thingvallavatn Lake in Iceland, a lake that partly fills a fault that divides Earth’s large Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

Tomorrow’s picture: moon over mars

冰岛板块分界线上空的螺旋极光
影像提供与版权: Juan Carlos Casado (Starry Earth, TWAN)

说明: 欣赏美景之余，也要戒慎它后头的猛兽。此处的美景指头顶的庞大螺旋状泛绿极光，而这团位在美丽云朵之间的极光，旁边有明月为伴，后头则有繁星为衬托。猛兽则是这波引发极光的带电粒子，而或许有一天，这种带电粒子团会重创人类文明。例如在1859年，于出现全球各地皆可见的极光活动之后，由太阳闪焰所触发的日冕物质抛射 （CME）释放出一团带电粒子，猛烈冲撞地球的磁层造成了卡林顿事件。由于卡林顿事件剧烈压缩了地球的磁场，因而在电报线上诱发出的强大电流，不仅造成许多电报线放电喷出火花，也使电报操作员受到电击。假如卡林顿等级的事件发生在当今的话，可能会让全球电力网和电子设备遭受空前规模的灾损。这幅主题影像是在2016年摄于冰岛的Thingvallavatn湖；此湖泊则座落在地球欧亚板块与北美洲板块的分界线上，它的湖水淹没部分的断层线。 (太阳闪焰=太阳耀斑; Carrington Event 卡林顿事件)

几乎超空间：随机APOD生成器

明日的图片: moon over mars