In today's image, we see an image showing an auroral display from early 2014. The aurora occur when charged particles from the Sun, often from a solar flare, strike Earth's atmosphere and are the funneled along the magnetic field toward the north and south magnetic poles. When the strike oxygen atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere, the tree glow is produced.

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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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