On Valentine’s Day the lights over Manitoba, Canada, were a beautiful shade of red
Red Aurora taken by Alan Dyer on February 14, 2015
@ Churchill, Manitoba
“The bright light at the right is Jupiter,” he points out. “Later, the aurora took on the more normal appearance with green curtains topped by fringes of red.”
Red auroras are not fully understood. They occur some 300 to 500 km above Earth’s surface, much higher than ordinary green auroras. Some researchers believe the red lights are linked to low energy electrons from the sun, which move too slowly to penetrate deeply into the atmosphere. When such electrons recombine with oxygen ions in the upper atmosphere, red photons are emitted. At present, space weather forecasters cannot predict when this will occur.
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=15&month=02&year=2015
February 16, 2015 at 6:54 pm
One night many years ago while I was trudging through the snow in the Shilo training area, the whole sky was brilliant pink. It was the first time I’d ever seen the Northern Lights a colour other then green. It was very impressive