NASA TV

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, commander of the International Space Station, holds one of the cups of Blue Bell ice cream during an interview.

The three astronauts on the International Space Station are having ice cream for dessert tonight — and we're not talking about that spongy "astronaut ice cream" stuff. This is the vanilla chocolate-swirl ice cream that was delivered in a research freezer aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship that arrived on Wednesday.

"It's quite a treat," space station commander Sunita Williams told ABC News during a space-to-Earth interview today. "We don't usually have this type of stuff up here. It's usually thermostabilized or dehydrated [food] that we're dehydrating. So homemade ice cream is something special, and we're going to have a little party."

The Blue Bell ice cream was a late addition to the manifest for SpaceX's Dragon supply flight, which marks the first routine commercial cargo delivery under the terms of a $1.6 billion, 12-flight contract with NASA. Astronauts used the space station's arm to bring the Dragon in for berthing early Wednesday, and the time line went so smoothly that the hatches between the station and the visiting spacecraft were opened that same day — a day earlier than scheduled.

The ice cream was transferred from the Dragon's ultra-cold GLACIER research freezer to the space station's own freezer space in preparation for tonight's dinner. Williams is sharing the treats with Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. NASA spokesman Rob Navias told me today that the ice cream supply amounts to a pint or two — and it's not clear how long the spacefliers will be able to stretch that out. "It depends on how much they eat," Navias quipped.

The space station's crew has until Oct. 28 to transfer 882 pounds (400 kilograms) of supplies into the station, load it back up with about twice as much mass in Earth-bound cargo, and unberth the Dragon for its re-entry and splashdown. In place of the ice cream, the GLACIER freezer will be carrying frozen biological samples, including hundreds of frozen blood and urine samples that have been waiting for a ride back down to Earth. Since last year's retirement of the shuttle fleet, the Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo from the space station.

Navias made it sound as if Williams and her crewmates should have no problem meeting their deadlines.

"As of 1 p.m. Central Time, the crew had completed 77 percent of all of the cargo transfer and had already unpacked all of that cargo moved over to the station so far," Navias told me in a follow-up email. "All in one day. Way ahead of schedule."

Sounds like somebody deserves an extra helping of ice cream.

Update for 5 p.m. ET: NASA's Space Food Hall of Fame notes that the freeze-dried confection known as astronaut ice cream actually flew in space only once, aboard Apollo 7 in 1968. "It wasn't that popular," NASA food scientist Vickie Kloeris said in 2005. The desserts offered to the space station's astronauts are typically things like chocolate brownies, plum-cherry cobbler, honey cake or berry medley. Every once in a while, though, a space shuttle shipment would include real ice cream as a special treat.

More about outer-space food:

• Frozen dessert goes into orbit
• NASA serves up space food and shuttle tiles
• Simulation crew to explore the final frontier of food
• Spicy food gets five stars from space station crew

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Don Pettit / NASA

This is a composite of 18 time-exposure images photographed from a mounted camera on the International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. The image is filled with star trails and spiraling reflections from the space station's solar arrays.

Flying on the International Space Station is the world's biggest high, and a series of psychedelic time-exposure images engineered by NASA astronaut Don Pettit proves it.

This picture, showing the station's truss structure in the foreground and Earth's airglow in the background, is actually a composite of 18 different exposures. A couple of other pictures in the series step things up a notch by putting together 47 exposures. Here's Pettit's explanation of the process, as laid out in the NASA Twitter gallery:

"My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures, I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then 'stack' them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure."

This isn't the only experiment Pettit has been conducting during his stint on the space station. A wide variety of scientific tests are under way in orbit, ranging from studies of human health in zero-G to the chemistry of Scotch whisky in weightlessness. Pettit has shown off some pretty trippy experiments in a couple of space station videos, including the creation of antibubbles within bubbles and the sight of sonic water droplets rockin' out to the sounds of ZZ Top. As Pettit says in one of the videos: "Oh, wow!" Check out the full "Science Off the Sphere" series, presented in cooperation with the American Physical Society.

More about the space station:

• Video: Russian rocket blasts off for space station
• New life science experiments sought for space station
• Space zucchini's life blogged by astronaut

Tip o' the Log to Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

SpaceX

The SpaceX Dragon capsule is prominent in this photo of the Falcon 9 rocket in its lowered position at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch complex in Florida.

The first private-sector spaceship destined to hook up with the International Space Station will have to wait a few days longer than planned for its Florida launch.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 on May 7, on a test flight that could climax with a space station berthing of its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule several days later. A launch-pad engine test went off successfully on Monday, but more time is needed to analyze changes in SpaceX's flight software and make sure all systems are go.

"At this time, a May 7 launch appears unlikely," SpaceX communications director Kirstin Brost Grantham said in an email. "SpaceX is continuing to work through the software assurance process with NASA.  We will issue a statement as soon as a new launch target is set."

Due to the orbital mechanics involved in a space station rendezvous, the Falcon 9 can be launched only at a precise time during the day, on specific dates. The next opportunity for launch comes on May 10, but it's not yet clear whether liftoff will be reset for that date. In a Twitter update, Space News' Brian Berger cited an internal NASA manifest that showed the launch slipping to no earlier than May 10. After that date, SpaceX would have to stand down to let the Russians launch a three-person crew in a Soyuz craft to the space station on May 14.

California-based SpaceX has received hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to support the development of the Falcon 9 and the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule for resupplying the space station. The Falcon 9 has been sent into orbit only twice before — once in June 2010 with a test capsule, and again in December 2010 with a functional Dragon spacecraft that returned to Earth after two orbits.

The upcoming demonstration launch has been rescheduled repeatedly, from February to April to May, due to the need for intensive software reviews. The flight plan calls for Dragon to execute a series of maneuvers near the space station. If the spaceship's sensors and flight systems work as designed, Dragon will then fly a rendezvous and approach. If Dragon reaches the station safely, the station's astronauts will use a robotic arm to bring the commercial spaceship in for berthing, and then unload the non-essential cargo that's aboard.

A couple of weeks later, Dragon would be sent back down to a Pacific Ocean splashdown.

A success during this first berthing attempt would open the way for SpaceX to start regular robotic resupply missions to the space station under the terms of a $1.6 billion NASA contract. It also could help pave the way for Dragon to ferry Americans to and from the space station in three to five years, depending on further NASA funding. 

Since the last space shuttle left the station last July, Americans can travel into orbit only as passengers aboard Russian spacecraft, at a cost of about $60 million a seat.

More about SpaceX and the commercial space race:

• Private spaceship launch on the horizon
  
• SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
• Next steps in the new space race

Last updated 3:25 p.m. ET. Tip o' the log to NBC News' Cape Canaveral correspondent, Jay Barbree.

 Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Laurent Lamy

These composite images show Uranian auroras as bright spots on the planet's disk on Nov 16, 2011 (left), and on Nov. 29 (right). The images from the Hubble Space Telescope have been processed to bring out details in Uranus' faint ring system.

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have caught a rare display of auroras on Uranus, which ranks among the solar system's oddest planets.

Unlike the beautiful, rippling curtains of greenish light we've been seeing in earthly skies over the past few months, the Uranian auroras are short-lived bright spots sitting on top of the ice giant's bluish cloud tops. But they're caused by a similar mechanism, involving the interaction of electrically charged particles with atoms and ions in the planet's upper atmosphere.

NASA's Voyager 2 probe picked up the first evidence of Uranus' auroras in 1986. "Since then, we've had no opportunities to get new observations of this very unusual magnetosphere," Laurent Lamy, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, said today in a news release. There have been a few hints of auroral observations, but Hubble's views from last November rank as the best views yet. Lamy and his colleagues provide the details in a paper published by Geophysical Research Letters.

The team took advantage of a lucky break and a favorable planetary alignment: Last year, Earth, Jupiter and Uranus were lined up so that energetic solar emissions could flow past each planet in turn. When the sun produced several outbursts in September, the astronomers timed the flow of the particle storm past Earth a couple of days later, and then detected the flow past Jupiter two weeks after that. On the basis of those readings, they calculated that the outburst would reach Uranus in mid-November, and scrambled to schedule observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Uranus is an oddity because it basically rotates on its side as it orbits the sun. The orientation of its magnetosphere is tilted 60 degrees with respect to its rotational axis. As a result, during the current season, each of the planet's magnetic poles turns to face the sun in the course of a Uranian day. "This configuration is unique in the solar system," Lamy said.

Hubble was well-placed to catch the auroral flashes on the sunlit side, near Uranus' north magnetic pole. Each flash appeared to last only a couple of minutes, the astronomers said.

These new findings solidify Uranus' place on the list of planets flashing with auroral lights. Jupiter and Saturn are also on the list. Mars is thought to be capable of localized auroral effects, even though it doesn't have a global magnetic field. (In fact, some observers suspect we saw evidence of those effects last month.) Earlier this month, astronomers reported seeing auroral-type activity on Venus as well.

Lights on Earth
And then there's Earth. Last October, a solar outburst sparked northern lights that could be seen as far south as the state of Mississippi, and over the past month, higher-latitude residents have been treated to almost as many fireworks displays as Disneyland tourists typically get to see. Although the approach of summer is starting to cut down on the opportunities to see auroras in the Northern Hemisphere, some folks got great views as recently as last night. Here are a few of the highlights:

Shawn Malone of Marquette, Mich., snapped pictures of the aurora from the shores of Lake Superior. "The sky was ablaze in light," Malone told SpaceWeather.com. "Northern lights were so bright they lit up the beach!" For more from Malone, check out LakeSuperiorPhoto.com and his Vimeo video gallery.

Brian Larmay

Here's a different angle on the aurora and the International Space Station, captured by Brian Larmay of Beecher, Wis. The long streak in this time-lapse photograph is the space station, sailing across the sky. To see more of Larmay's pictures, check out his SmugMug gallery.

'Where in the Cosmos'
Today's picture of auroral displays on Uranus served as this week's "Where in the Cosmos" picture puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. It took only a couple of minutes for Shirley Beningo to blurt out which celestial body was shown in the picture, and what the bright spots were. To reward her for her quick cosmic vision, I'm sending her a pair of cardboard 3-D glasses, wrapped up in a 3-D picture of yours truly. Ashley Nicole and Gerry Marien came in as the runners-up, and are eligible for 3-D glasses as well. Be sure to click the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page so you're ready for next Friday's "Where in the Cosmos" contest.

Earlier stories of auroral glories:

• Farewell to the northern lights
• Northern lights make for must-see TV
• Southern exposure for auroral lights
• Sky lights go wild, north and south
• Solar storm lights up northern skies
• Slideshow: The best of the northern lights
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive

In addition to Lamy, the authors of "Earth-Based Detection of Uranus' Aurorae" include R. Prange, K.C. Hansen, J.T. Clarke, P. Zarka, B. Cecconi, J. Aboudarham, N. Andre, G. Branduardi-Raymont, R. Gladstone, M. Barthelemy, N. Achilleos, P. Guio, M.K. Dougherty, H. Melin, S.W.H. Cowley, T.S. Stallard, J.D. Nichols and G. Ballester.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto,"my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

NASA TV

Russian spacecraft stick up from their docking ports on the International Space Station during Saturday's encounter with a piece of space junk. Spacefliers took shelter in their Russian Soyuz lifeboats as a precaution.

The International Space Station's crew members took shelter in their Russian Soyuz lifeboats as a precaution during Saturday's totally harmless passage of a piece of space debris.

In a series of Twitter updates on Friday night, NASA said a hunk of junk from a Russian satellite was projected to fly past the space station at an estimated distance of 14.8 kilometers (9 miles), at around 2:38 a.m. ET Saturday. That was within the zone that required precautionary measures to be taken. The zone is called a "pizza box" because of its shape: 50 kilometers (30 miles) on a side, and 750 meters (a half-mile) above and below the plane of the station.

The appointed time came and went without incident. "Nichevo ... Nothing," one of the Russian cosmonauts said. The spacefliers had hoped to catch a glimpse of the object, but no visual sighting was reported.

NASA said the relatively small piece of debris was a leftover from the 2009 collision involving an Iridium telecommunications satellite and Russia's Cosmos 2251 military communications satellite. It was detected by radar on Friday, sparking the alert.

"Everything went by the book," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said after the all-clear was sounded. He said the station's controllers followed a "precautionary and conservative" approach by ordering the crew to take shelter.

The station currently has six crew members aboard: two Americans (Don Pettit and Dan Burbank), three Russians (Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Kononenko) and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers. The spacefliers were awakened a little more than an hour earlier than scheduled and put the station's control systems into standby mode. Then they took their places in the two Soyuz craft docked to the station and closed the hatches.

The crew members were prepared to descend back down to Earth if the piece of debris had collided with the 450-ton space station and dealt such a serious blow that the orbital outpost had to be abandoned. Instead, they merely reopened the hatches, returned the control systems to their regular settings and resumed a "normal and relaxing weekend," Navias said.

He said it was "serendipitous" that the precautionary measures were taken on the astronauts' day off, meaning that there would be "no impact to scientific research or any other crew work."

Not the first time, or the last
NASA issued a similar collision alert back in November, but called off the alert even before the astronauts' appointed time to get into the Soyuz space capsules. Last June, the crew actually did get into the Soyuz craft due to a collision threat, but the space junk whizzed past at a distance of 850 feet (260 meters). Astronauts took similar precautions in April 2009 and November 2008.

On other occasions, the space station has changed its orbital path slightly to eliminate the risk of collision with space debris. That's how NASA dealt with potential collision threats in January, involving debris from the Iridium satellite as well as from a Chinese satellite that was smashed up in 2007. But in order to use that option, the crew needs more than a day of advance warning.

Experts say there are more than 20,000 pieces of orbiting space junk more than 10 centimeters wide — that is, bigger than a softball. Lots more pieces are smaller, down to the size of a marble. "More than 500,000 pieces of orbital debris are tracked," NASA noted Friday night.

These bits of debris zip around the planet at speeds of 17,500 mph relative to Earth, and could cause serious damage if they were to hit the space station just wrong. NASA and the Defense Department keep close track of the bigger pieces, but the experts are worried that the space-debris problem will only get worse in the years ahead.

All sorts of schemes have been proposed to address the problem, including the idea of shooting water guns or lasers at pieces of space junk, or throwing nets over them. Last month, a Swiss venture announced that they were developing a "janitor satellite" to sweep up the trash. Do you have a better idea? Share it as a comment below. 

Update for 11:05 p.m. ET March 23: I originally said the "pizza box" zone was 25 kilometers on each side, but what I meant to say was that it extends 25 kilometers out from the space station on each side. That means the total dimension of the box is 50 by 50 by 1.5 kilometers, with the station in the center, as NASA explains.

Update for 12:55 a.m. ET March 24: When the space station crew was awakened this morning, Mission Control told NASA astronaut Dan Burbank that the debris was projected to come within 9 miles, which is closer than the initial estimate of 14.3 miles. I updated the figures to reflect that, but even the updated estimates had a measure of uncertainty. That's why the spacefliers took shelter.

More about space debris:

• Junk-tracking 'Space Fence' passes key test
• To control space junk, remove 5 pieces a year
• Time running out to salvage doomed satellite
• Europe creating its own space-debris tracker

Last updated at 3 a.m. ET March 24.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

SpaceX

An artist's conception shows SpaceX's Dragon capsule at the International Space Station for a delivery.

SpaceX's president says the California-based rocket company is preparing to launch the first commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station as early as April 30 — but whether that date holds will depend on what happens between now and then.

The new "no earlier than" date came out on Tuesday during the Satellite 2012 conference in Washington. "I’m happy to say we have a launch date scheduled on the range and a berthing date with the ISS," New Space Journal quoted SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell as saying during a panel. "The launch date is April 30, and we hope to berth on May 3."

That date is just barely in line with SpaceX's previous statements that the company was preparing for a late-April launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, topped by its Dragon cargo capsule. Representatives of SpaceX as well as NASA emphasized that the official date has not yet been set.

"The launch date will be set officially at the Flight Readiness Review on April 12," NASA spokesman Michael Braukus told me in an email. "April 30 is the date SpaceX is working toward."

SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham echoed that assessment. "SpaceX is currently targeting April 30 for our upcoming demonstration mission," she said in an email. "However, NASA will not grant final approval for a targeted launch date until completion of the Flight Readiness Review."

The launch date has been postponed in the past, due to technical issues that have cropped up during the preparations. Even after an official date is set, further postponements may well be in store. Shotwell was quoted as saying that "we may have to have a couple of attempts, but we’re certainly looking forward to getting that flight off."

In a follow-up email, Grantham explained why the launch schedule is subject to change: "The upcoming mission is exciting because of the potential to make history.  But it is a test flight.  This is a challenging mission, and we intend to take every necessary precaution in order to improve the likelihood of success."

The flight plan calls for the robotically controlled Dragon to approach the station and conduct a series of test maneuvers. If everything checks out, astronauts would then use the station's robotic arm to grab the Dragon and bring it in for its berthing. After unloading supplies, the station's crew would unberth the Dragon and send it back down for splashdown and recovery.

SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences, have been receiving more than $600 million from NASA for the development of cargo craft capable of filling in for the now-retired space shuttle fleet. If the two companies are successful, they'll be eligible for $3.5 billion in NASA contracts for space station resupply.

SpaceX's Dragon successfully completed its first orbital test in December 2010, but it hasn't flown since. Orbital's Antares launch vehicle and Cygnus cargo craft have not yet gone into space, but their first test flight is scheduled for later this year.

The upcoming SpaceX launch would mark a milestone, due to its status as the first fully commercial flight to the space station. NASA is counting on commercial providers to send U.S. supplies into orbit, and eventually U.S. astronauts as well. Until those commercial craft are in operation, NASA has to depend on other countries for cargo supply, and exclusively on the Russians for crew transport. The per-seat cost for those crew flights is heading upwards of $60 million per seat. SpaceX and other would-be crew carriers, including the Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp. and Blue Origin, say they can match that price.

Those four companies have been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from NASA for spaceship development, and the Obama administration's budget proposal calls for spending another $830 million on the commercial crew program in fiscal year 2013. That level of support would get the commercial crew transports flying by 2017, NASA says.

More about commercial space:

• Private rocket passes big test for space station launch
• Next steps in a new space race
• SpaceX signs up two more satellite launch customers
• Cosmic Log archive on commercial space

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

ESA / NASA

A picture from the International Space Station, provided Saturday by Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, shows southern lights between Antarctica and Australia.

Most of the fantastic auroral views we've been getting over the past month have been from the north side of the world — but the southern lights are getting their day in the sun as well, thanks largely to the International Space Station.

The northern lights are more widely seen primarily because the high northern latitudes are more populated than similar latitudes in the south: The southernmost cities in Australia and New Zealand are in the 40s, latitude-wise, while Argentina and Chile dip down into the mid-50s. In comparison, the prime aurora-viewing areas in the north are in the 60s and 70s.

The International Space Station flies as far as 51.6 north and south latitude on every orbit, and its astronauts have a far more commanding view of the polar regions than earthly skywatchers. So it's no surprise that they're regularly seeing the auroral glow during the current period of heightened solar activity. Right now, the station's crew is in the midst of a viewing campaign that's being coordinated with the Canadian Space Agency's AuroraMAX project. Some of the reddish glows reach all the way up to the space station's level, 240 miles above Earth.

"We can actually fly into the auroras," space station resident Don Pettit said recently. "It's like being shrunk down and put inside of a neon sign."

You've got lots of choices for browsing through auroral sights and other views from space. There's Kuipers' Flickr gallery, the NASA 2Explore Flickr site, NASA's Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, the Expedition 30 gallery on NASA's Human Spaceflight website, and the Fragile Oasis Facebook page, where astronaut Ron Garan and his colleagues keep track of everything that's out there. To find out when you can see the space station from your locale, consult NASA's database for sighting opportunities.

NASA

This March 6 photo from the International Space Station highlights daybreak on the left side of the horizon, and the southern lights on the right side. The station was flying over the Indian Ocean at the time, or about 1,200 miles south of Australia. The view is toward the east. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is connected to the Pirs docking compartment at center, and a Russian Progress cargo craft is docked at right.

The space station's astronauts aren't the only ones who are seeing the southern lights: Check out the pictures from New Zealand and Tasmania that are being posted to SpaceWeather.com. And stay tuned: Thanks to a series of solar outbursts over the weekend, heightened geomagnetic activity should continue through Tuesday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center. That means there could be still more neon lights in the sky. Check out NOAA's Ovation Auroral Forecast and the University's Aurora Forecast website to find out if you're in the potential aurora zone.

Update for 9:30 p.m. ET: Tonight's northern lights were not to be missed at Sweden's Abisko National Park. "Tonight was very special," photographer Chad Blakley of Lights Over Lapland wrote in an email. "We had incredible auroras and were able to watch them dance as Venus and Jupiter went down behind the mountains." Here's a must-see time-lapse video of the scene:

Update for 4:30 p.m. ET March 14: ... And looking back Down Under, here's a wonderful video clip from Ian Stewart in Tasmania, looking south over Bruny Island. "This aurora was short lived, and obscured for the most part by cloud," Stewart wrote. "The cloud cleared just as the sky started glowing an eerie soft red, and the aurora faded into the beams of the rising moon at the end." Still more solar particles are coming our way, so stay tuned for more great views from the north and south. Check SpaceWeather.com for the latest.

More auroral glories:

• Sky lights go wild, north and south
• Solar storm lights up northern skies
• Rocket flies into the northern lights
• Aurora extravaganza glows in space
• Planet looks back at the northern lights
• Auroras spark awe across the north
• Slideshow: The best of the northern lights
• Cosmic Log's auroral archive