Bright Night Lights
A coronal mass ejection from the Sun set night skies ablaze in mid-October 2024. This composite panorama shows a busy night sky over New Zealand’s South Island. A widespread red aurora was joined by a green picket-fence aurora and a host of other magnetohydrodynamic phenomena. To the left shines a bright Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc. On the right near the Moon hangs the purple arc of a STEVE — strong thermal emission velocity enhancement. All of these auroras (and aurora-adjacent phenomena) take place when high-energy particles from the solar wind interact with molecules in our atmosphere. Which molecules they encounter determines the color of the aurora, and the shape depends, in part, on which magnetic lines the particles get funneled down. With strong solar storms like this one, auroras can reach far from the poles, and, as seen here, can show up in many varieties. (Image credit: T. McDonald; via APOD)
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