Фото-факт. Зеленый снег в северной Канаде

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: On Dec. 6th, a magnetic filament stretching more than 700,000 km around the sun's southeastern limb erupted, producing a blast of epic proportions. Earth was not in the line of fire. Click to view a must-see movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

NORTHERN LIGHTS: Last night (Dec. 7th) a minor gust of solar wind gently buffeted Earth's magnetic field. At the Aurora Sky Station in Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, a gentle gust is all it takes to ignite auroras you can reach out and touch ... almost:

"Every night our staff checks spaceweather.com to see what the future may hold," says Sky Station photographer Chad Blakley. "Needless to say, we were all excited when we saw the density of the solar wind rise above 15 protons/cm3. Soon the auroras began, and they did not stop until we all went home six hours later." (For the record, the auroras pictured above were more than 100 km above Blakeley's head.)

A more forceful gust of solar wind is en route to Earth, due to arrive on Dec. 10th. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras.

more images: from Frank Olsen outside Tromsø, Norway; from Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway; from Börkur Hrólfsson of Reykjavik, Iceland; from Øystein Lunde Ingvaldsen of Bø in Vesterålen, Norway; from Kjetil Skogli outside Tromsø, Norway

http://www.spaceweather.com/