Daily news from the Natinal Geographic..Tuesday morning.

Arctic Auroras

Photograph by Ole C. Salomonsen, arcticlightphoto.no

Northern lights dance over the Lyngan Alps in a picture taken Tuesday night near Tromsø, Norway. The brilliant auroras were triggered by a coronal mass ejection, or CME, that hit our planet Tuesday morning. A CME is a cloud of superheated gas and charged particles hurled off the sun.

On Monday, space-weather scientists reported that an especially strong solar flare had erupted from an active region on the sun, followed by the huge CME that came barreling toward our planet. The burst of activity triggered the strongest solar storm experienced since October 2003, according to experts atNOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

When a CME hits Earth, the charged solar particles can interact with gases in our atmosphere to produce the northern and southern lights. Sky-watchers were put on alert for intense auroras Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.

Halley's Comet Makes an Appearance..1910

1910: Earth passes through the tail of Halley’s comet. The anticipation of its arrival creates quite a stir. In some circles, the comet’s unusually close approach is seen as a sign of impending doom, a notion the down-market press does little to dispel.

The comet was named for British astronomer Edmond Halley, the first to determine its orbit and accurately predict its return to the Earth’s night sky. Although Halley died 16 years before his prediction could be tested, the comet appeared on Christmas night 1758, right on schedule. It’s been Halley’s comet ever since, appearing at regular 74- to 79-year intervals.

The 1910 pass of Earth was especially close and, thanks to expansive newspaper coverage, eagerly anticipated by the general public. In fact, Earth’s orbit carried it through the end of the comet’s 24-million-mile-long tail for six hours on May 19, earning the story the day’s banner headline in The New York Times.

While most reporters of the day turned to astronomers to get the facts straight, the yellow press chose to pursue the story in more fanciful ways, helping to fuel the fears of the impressionable that the end of the world was nigh. Despite some published reports leading up to the event, the comet’s tail did not contain poisonous gases, and there was never any danger of a celestial collision, either.

In anticipation of the comet’s arrival, telescope sales shot up, and hotels in large cities offered special packages that included rooftop viewings. President William Howard Taft had a look-see at the U.S. Naval Observatory and came away suitably impressed. Not everyone was taken in, though: The sitting pope, Pius X, dismissed the entire show as overblown.

The comet was at its closest, therefore its brightest, between May 14 and 22.

We can’t file this item without mentioning Mark Twain’s famous connection to Halley’s comet. Twain (nee Samuel Clemens), America’s pre-eminent man of letters, was born in 1835 as the comet passed over. In 1909, knowing that Halley’s comet was due to make another pass the following year, Twain predicted he would die when it did. Observatory telescopes picked up the comet on April 9, 1910, and followed it as it reached perihelion on April 20. Twain died the next day.

Halley’s comet is scheduled to make its next appearance in late July 2061.

Of the thousands of known comets in the solar system, Halley's comet is one of some 200 that are periodic. Halley's comet orbits Earth every 76 years; the next flyby will occur in 2061.

Comet C/2001 Q4, also known as NEAT, emits a blue-and-purple glow as it moves through the cosmos in May 2004. Its coma, or head, and a portion of its tail are visible in this shot, as are myriad stars. This image was taken by telescope from Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.