Aurora Photographer

A spectacular display of Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights lit up the sky over Sweden Mountains near Kiruna, in the Arctic region. When aurora is very active it often displays its most beautiful form known as aurora corona. It appears near the zenith (overhead). Its form can appear to boil with motion, its colors can range across the entire spectrum and, when bright, it can easily cast a shadow. As added by the photographer “together with my colleague P-M Heden we were on a TWAN imaging expedition in Lapland, in the land of Sami people. With snow mobiles we drove to the slopes of Scandinavian Mountains. Being up in the 68 degrees latitude and during an aurora storm the sky above us was unbelievable. In this image P-M Heden was so amazed by the aurora corona that he was almost praying the sky with his camera!” Aurora is produced by the collision of charged particles from Earth’s magnetosphere, mostly electrons but also protons and heavier particles, with atoms and molecules of Earth’s atmosphere (at altitudes above 80 km). The particles originate from the Sun and reach the Earth in the stream of solar wind.