The Meteor and the Nordlys

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A meteor slices through the glow of the northern lights (or “Nordlys”) in this photo by Adon Buckley, taken near the border of Norway and Finland on the night of October 19, 2011.

“The weather was against us, it was raining heavily in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsø,” Adon describes on his Flickr page. “We drove for 2 hours and waited on the Norwegian/Finish border for 3 more and this was at the start of the show on October 19th.”

He adds, “I actually missed the shooting star when it happened, but my friend told me and I was eager to check the exposure when I got home.”

Great catch, Adon! And a wonderful photo as well.

See more of Adon’s photos on his Flickr photostream here.

Image © Adon Buckley. Used with permission.

2 Replies to “The Meteor and the Nordlys”

  1. That was extraordinarily beautiful.

    Interesting but perhaps not surprising that the impacting meteor seems to excite the same (green, i.e. oxygen) emission lines as the impacting solar wind.

    or “Nordlys”

    That is the norwegian term; I dunno what the finnish is.

    [FWIW, the swedish term is “norrsken”, en: “northern shine”. But it was Norse vikings that settled in England, Scotland, and Ireland, mainly Swede vikings settled in Russia and Byzantine.]

  2. I just saw my first biog bolide an hour ago.
    I have seen many meteors my life but this one was really a big one. Sadly enough I was driving my car so I could not stop and look where it came from.

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