Time-Lapse Captures Breathtaking Aurora Borealis Caused by a Massive Solar Flare

On March 16th, a massive solar flare at sunspot AR1692 — a spot roughly the size of our quaint little planet — sent a huge burst of solar wind headed our way. On March 17th, when it came into contact with the Earth’s magnetic field, several hours of breathtaking aurora borealis resulted.

Fortunately for those of us who don’t live somewhere where we could have caught the show first hand, photographer Göran Strand captured the entire four hour experience for us. The resulting video consists of about 40GB of image information: a ten image hydrogen alpha mosaic of the sun totaling 10GB, and a 2,464 RAW image time-lapse totaling 30GB.

The final product took five days to process, and boils down four hours worth of breathtaking aurora into about one minute and forty seconds of awe and wonder. Nothing left to do now except sit back and enjoy the show.

(via Gizmodo)

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