Colorful Aurora over New Zealand.

Sometimes the night sky is full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass , South Island , New Zealand one-night last week. Instead of a typically calm night sky filled with constant stars , a busy and dynamic night sky appeared. Suddenly visible were pervasive red aurora , green picket-fence aurora , a red SAR arc , a STEVE , a meteor , and the Moon . These outshone the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and both of its two satellite galaxies: the LMC and SMC . All of these were captured together on 28 exposures in five minutes, from which this panorama was composed. Auroras lit up many skies last week, as a Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun unleashed a burst of particles toward our Earth that created colorful skies over latitude s usually too far from the Earth's poles to see them. More generally, night skies this month have other surprises, showing not only auroras -- but comet s .

Jigsaw Challenge: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day