Experience a Virtual Reality Aurora

By Nancy Atkinson - April 09, 2013 07:48 PM UTC | Planetary Science

This is awesome. Astrophotographer

Göran Strand

took his 30 gigabytes of image data of the incredible aurora he shot on March 17 (

which we shared here

) and re-tooled everything to fit into an interactive virtual reality-type video where the viewer can move and pan around in any direction. You can watch below, or

click here

to see the full screen version and be transported to a small town in northern Sweden called Östersund.

Strand said he was almost obsessed with creating this virtual reality version to try and share the experience.

"Hopefully this means that I finally can close the case on the auroras from March 17," he told Universe Today via email. "As you might understand, these amazing auroras had a big impact on me and I really want to show how wonderful it was."

Here's the virtual reality version. Use the arrow keys on your computer to move the view around in any direction:

Here's the orignal video that Strand created:

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com