NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 27, 2026 featured a colorful aurora over Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. The image was taken in a single 5-second exposure by photographer Victor Lima in April 2025, according to the entry.

The text explains that auroras occur when charged particles from the solar wind are captured by Earth's magnetosphere and guided along the magnetic field toward a pole, where they collide with gases in the atmosphere. Different colors reflect interactions with different gases at different altitudes, such as oxygen (red and green) and nitrogen (blue and pink).

Seeing an aurora requires high solar activity, dark clear skies and usually a high-latitude location, the entry notes, adding that northern lights are more easily seen than southern lights because the Southern Hemisphere has less landmass, especially around the Antarctic Circle. The page also mentioned that APOD's main NASA site was moving from apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod.