In today's image, we see an aurora over Iceland which may be seen to resemble a dragon in the sky. The aurora are caused by charged particles from our Sun which excite oxygen atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere and cause them to glow. The more active the Sun, the stronger and more prominent the aurora will be.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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