<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><center style="font-family: -webkit-standard; background-color: rgb(244, 244, 255);" class=""><p class=""><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1703/AuroraIceland_Brynjarsson_8086.jpg" class=""></a></p></center><center style="font-family: -webkit-standard; background-color: rgb(244, 244, 255);" class=""><b class="">Colorful Aurora over Iceland </b><br class=""><b class="">Image Credit & Copyright: </b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/SiggiPhoto/about/" class="">Sigurdur William Brynjarsson</a>; <i class="">Annotation Advice: </i>Sævar Helgi Bragason</center><p style="font-family: -webkit-standard; background-color: rgb(244, 244, 255);" class=""><font size="4" class=""><b class="">Explanation: </b>You don't always see a scene this beautiful when you hike to an ancient volcano -- you have to be lucky. When <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sigurdurwilliam/" class="">the astrophotographer</a> realized that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora" class="">aurora</a> were visible two-weeks ago, he made a night-time run for the top of the caldera to see if he could capture them also reflected in the central lake. When he arrived, he found that ... the northern lights were even brighter and more impressive than before! And <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SiggiPhoto/photos/a.836573043162643.1073741863.121670627986225/867276946758919/?type=3&theater" class="">his image</a> of them is the featured 13-frame panoramic mosaic. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbzDtMoOwLI" class="">crater lake in the center</a> is called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri%C3%B0" class="">Kerid (Icelandic: Kerið)</a> and is about 3,000 years old. The <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/aurora-news-stories/index.html" class="">aurora</a> overhead shows impressive <a href="http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211.fall2000.web.projects/Christina%20Shaw/AuroraColors.html" class="">colors</a> and <a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150330.html" class="">banding</a>, with the red colors occurring higher in the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/science/atmosphere-layers2.html" class="">Earth's atmosphere</a> than the <a href="http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/86aed294-ffbe-4652-8fdf-5d51f784d06a/5620785c-0984-448b-b3ca-16c0a987f23d.jpg" class="">green</a>. The background sky is filled with icons of the northern night including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris" class="">Polaris</a>, the <a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161019.html" class="">Pleiades star cluster</a>, and the stars that compose the handle of the <a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150317.html" class="">Big Dipper</a>. </font></p><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard; background-color: rgb(244, 244, 255);" class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></body></html>