{"copyright":"\nJJ Rao\n","date":"2025-12-16","explanation":"What’s happening over that tree? Two very different things. On the left is the Andromeda galaxy, an object that is older than humanity and will last billions of years into the f uture. Andromeda (M31) is similar in size and shape to our own Milky Way Galaxy . On the right is a red sprite, a type of lightning that lasts a fraction of a second and occurs above violent thunderstorms. Red sprites were verified as real atmospheric phenomena only about 35 years ago. The tree in the center is a boa b, which may live for as long as a thousand years. Boab trees grow naturally in Australia and Africa and are known for being able to store large amounts of wat er: up to 100,000 liters. The featured image was captured last month near Derby in Western Australia.","hdurl":"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/image\/2512\/And romedaSprites_Rao_2000.jpg","media_type":"image","service_version":"v1","title": "Andromeda and Sprites over Australia","url":"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ima ge\/2512\/AndromedaSprites_Rao_1080.jpg"}
