NebulaEyes Odyssey: Beyond the Stars

NEWLY ARRIVED NASA ASTRONAUTS ON SPACE STATION GREETED BY INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CREW Within hours after docking to the International Space Station aboard their new SpaceX Crew Dragon craft “Endeavour” May 31, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken floated aboard the orbital outpost and were greeted by Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy of NASA and Russian crewmates Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. Almost nine years after the retirement of the space shuttle, the launches of American astronauts on American spacecraft from American soil resumed with Hurley and Behnken launching on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida May 30.

Aurora are colorful lights in the night time sky primarily appearing in Earth's polar regions. But what causes them? The culprit behind aurora is our own Sun and the solar plasma that is ejected during a magnetic event like a flare or a coronal mass ejection. This plasma travels outward along with the solar wind and when it encounters Earth's magnetic field, it travels down the field lines that connect at the poles. Atoms in the plasma interacts with atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere. This reaction produces the colorful lights we call aurora.