Fierce Solar Storm Pelts Earth, Creating Extremely Rare Pink Aurora Borealis

On November 3rd, a temporary crack in Earth’s magnetic field set off rare pink auroras in the skies of northern Norway.

Auroras are mostly caused by the solar wind, as charged energetic particles from the Sun penetrate the magnetosphere, Earth’s magnetic field, which usually stops cosmic rays. At the two poles, however, the magnetosphere is weaker than elsewhere, allowing solar wind particles to penetrate the atmosphere.

They don’t tend to travel very far though, usually reaching an altitude where there are a lot of oxygen atoms, which are ionized and excited by the charged particles from the Sun and commonly emit a green hue. This time, however, a fierce solar storm created a gap in the magnetosphere, and the solar particles got deeper than usual, reaching the nitrogen atoms found lower down. These atoms, in turn, create a pink glow.