Aurora, December 14-15, 2006. The most spectacular aurora display in over two years blazed forth on this night. This photograph was taken at 12:52 a.m. on the 15th when the storm was subsiding somewhat. The small lights on the horizon are from two houses, and give a sense of scale. At this point the aurora looked like a flickering campfire above the houses. On December 13th an enormous solar flare unleashed a massive explosion of matter on the Sun. The material thrown off the surface of the Sun caused this geomagnetic storm when it reached the Earth.

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