Pink auroras are rare. Pulsating auroras are rare, too. Last night in Abisko, Sweden, sky watchers witnessed both rarities at the same time. Hit PLAY to make the sky pulse:
"My guides who photographed the display couldn't believe their eyes," says Chad Blakley, the owner of Lights over Lapland. "They are all saying things like 'I have never seen anything like this before!' and one of them described it as 'a glitch in the Matrix.'"
Pulsating auroras are Blakley's favorite: "The best way to describe a pulsating aurora is to imagine the sky as a large checker board," he says. "As the pulsating begins, black squares on the board would illuminate as a green aurora. Then, in an instant, all the black squares lose their illumination and the red squares on the imaginary checkerboard immediately glow green."
In this case, however, the green was pink. Pink auroras appear when solar wind particles penetrate unusually deep in Earth's atmosphere, striking nitrogen molecules less than 100 km above our planet's surface. A crack in Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 3rd let the particles reach that level.
Pulsating auroras are so mysterious, NASA keeps launching rockets into them to learn what makes them tick. In 2018, researchers led by S. Kasahara of the University of Tokyo conclusively linked pulsating auroras to "chorus waves" in Earth's magnetosphere. Their findings explain everything -- except the shape of the 'squares' and why they blink so quickly. Keep launching rockets, NASA.
www.spaceweather.com
Pulsating auroras are Blakley's favorite: "The best way to describe a pulsating aurora is to imagine the sky as a large checker board," he says. "As the pulsating begins, black squares on the board would illuminate as a green aurora. Then, in an instant, all the black squares lose their illumination and the red squares on the imaginary checkerboard immediately glow green."
In this case, however, the green was pink. Pink auroras appear when solar wind particles penetrate unusually deep in Earth's atmosphere, striking nitrogen molecules less than 100 km above our planet's surface. A crack in Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 3rd let the particles reach that level.
Pulsating auroras are so mysterious, NASA keeps launching rockets into them to learn what makes them tick. In 2018, researchers led by S. Kasahara of the University of Tokyo conclusively linked pulsating auroras to "chorus waves" in Earth's magnetosphere. Their findings explain everything -- except the shape of the 'squares' and why they blink so quickly. Keep launching rockets, NASA.
www.spaceweather.com
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