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Related: About this forumHere are 5 of the weirdest auroras, including the newly spotted 'dunes'
Ever heard of a black aurora? Or a pulsating aurora?
A newly discovered kind of aurora named the dunes (horizontal green stripes of light pointing to the left) is just the latest addition to a menagerie of obscure types of northern and southern lights.
PIRJO KOSKI
By Maria Temming
FEBRUARY 7, 2020 AT 11:41 AM
Sky watchers have spotted a new jewel in the crown of northern lights that shimmer over the top of the world.
The new kind of spectacle is a rare, faint phenomenon dubbed the dunes. Unlike other auroras that hang in the sky like luminous curtains, the dunes appear as green bands running parallel to the ground and pointing toward the equator, researchers report online January 28 in AGU Advances.
Using photographs snapped from different locations across Finland in October 2018, researchers triangulated the position of a set of the dunes stretching from western Sweden to western Finland, and hovering about 100 kilometers above the ground.
Aurorae are like fingerprints in the sky, says study coauthor Minna Palmroth, a space physicist at the University of Helsinki. Broadly speaking, auroras often called northern lights or southern lights appear when electrons from the magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere, surrounding Earth rain into the atmosphere and set oxygen and nitrogen gas aglow (SN: 7/25/14). But the particulars of those particle interactions give each type of aurora its unique flare.
More:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/auroras-dunes-pulsating-cusp-steve
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Here are 5 of the weirdest auroras, including the newly spotted 'dunes' (Original Post)
Judi Lynn
Feb 2020
OP
PJMcK
(22,037 posts)1. Stunning
Thanks for all of your posts, Judy Lynn. Here's a heart in return.
Judi Lynn
(160,551 posts)3. You are clearly too kind, PJMcK. Thank you twice, at least! 🧡💖
Bayard
(22,105 posts)2. Gorgeous
Thanks!
Judi Lynn
(160,551 posts)4. To see these auroras in person could be a sensory overload! Totally overwhelming. Thank you. n/t
burrowowl
(17,641 posts)5. Thanks for link
Karadeniz
(22,540 posts)6. Ghostly but gorgeous!❤ Thank you for sharing!