S K Y C A P E S   G A L L E R Y

― BETWEEN EARTH AND SPACE ―

 
  

ATMOSPHERICA
AUR-03-010

Water droplets or ice crystals high in the atmosphere can combine with moonlight and surround the moon with a colorful arc called a corona.  Here, in addition to faint light from the aurora borealis and some moonlit clouds, two coronae fragments appear east of the waxing gibbous moon in the frigid sky over Fairbanks, Alaska on the morning of March 14, 2003.  The two stars to the moon's upper right are Pollux and Castor; to its left is the bright planet Jupiter.