APOD: 2024 October 16 – Colorful Aurora over New Zealand

Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to the October 16th Hump Day Edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). The 'Land Down Under' is often full of surprises, and this panorama from New Zealand's South Island is no exception. Twenty eight exposures went into the creation of this composite image, and you'll need to mouse over today's APOD on the site to locate each feature. Two names were new to me: a STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) is an optical phenomenon that appears in the night sky at an altitude of ~280 miles. It is a ribbon of hot plasma (temperature of 5,430 °F) and flows at a speed of ~3.7 mi/s (compared to 33 ft/s) outside the ribbon. A SAR (Stable Auroral Red) arc occurs in the Earth's magnetosphere, the protective bubble around our planet that protects surface life from most of the electromagnetic radiation from the Sun.

All in all, a colorful active night in the Land Down Under. Cheers.