Monday, September 8, 2014

Apod 1.2

Due to a major thunderstorm over Bangladesh, Tibet, China was subject to an unusual site, the sky projected as a multicolored target. 

Airglow Ripples over Tibet

This interesting effect  is caused by an event called gravity waves, where waves of alternating air pressure, or buoyancy, pushes air up, and gravity pulls it back down. The colors are formed by chemiluminescence or the production of light in a chemical reaction, where the green light (excited oxygen atoms) that predominates the glow is located 90-100 km high in the thermosphere and the weaker red light (oxygen atoms) is further up. This phenomenon of chemilumencene, also called airglow, is what keeps the night sky from being completely dark, as seen in this visual of the milky way. 







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