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Sudden Red

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Reports were coming in from across Europe on Sunday. The northern lights were sighted far to the south in places like Italy and Turkey for the first time in 20 years. Unfortunately the timing of the geomagnetic storm was all wrong for North America. Even with Daylight Saving Time ending, darkness could not come soon enough. By nightfall in Wyoming the magnetic field of the solar wind had flipped northward, which cancels out the aurora. But conditions can change quickly so I went out somewhere dark anyway. Lingering energy in Earth’s magnetic field caused a rare SAR (stable auroral red) arc to glow overhead. This was caught on camera even in the southern US, though it was largely invisible to the eye. At 9pm the solar wind briefly became favorable again. Watermelon-colored aurora pillars quickly rose up into the northern sky.

Copyright
Kevin Palmer Photography
Image Size
6048x4024 / 17.2MB
Keywords
Contained in galleries
Northern Lights, Best of 2023, Recent Work, Wyoming
Reports were coming in from across Europe on Sunday. The northern lights were sighted far to the south in places like Italy and Turkey for the first time in 20 years. Unfortunately the timing of the geomagnetic storm was all wrong for North America. Even with Daylight Saving Time ending, darkness could not come soon enough. By nightfall in Wyoming the magnetic field of the solar wind had flipped northward, which cancels out the aurora. But conditions can change quickly so I went out somewhere dark anyway. Lingering energy in Earth’s magnetic field caused a rare SAR (stable auroral red) arc to glow overhead. This was caught on camera even in the southern US, though it was largely invisible to the eye. At 9pm the solar wind briefly became favorable again. Watermelon-colored aurora pillars quickly rose up into the northern sky.