Aurora Borealis turns sky green! Check the mesmerising pictures here

Have you seen the aurora borealis? The recent images of the Aurora Borealis shared by the National Park Service (NPS) is mesmerising. The Aurora Borealis lit up in the sky over Denali which is the highest mountain peak in North America. Sharing the image over its Instagram account, NPS wrote in the description, “‘Aurora Borealis!? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen!?’ – Super Nintendo Chalmers.”

It further went on to say that Denali is a great location for viewing the aurora because it is located at a far northern latitude and because there is very limited light pollution. Light pollution is found in towns, cities, and other developed areas where excessive artificial light brightens the natural environment.

It can be known that the most common colour seen in the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, is green. When the solar wind hits millions of oxygen atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere at the same time, it excites the oxygen atoms for a time and then they decay back to their original state, when they emit the green hue we can see from the ground, NPS said.

Do you know?

Aurora can be seen near the North or South Pole. If you’re near the North Pole, it is called an aurora borealis or northern lights. If you’re near the South Pole, it is called an aurora australis or the southern lights.

One of the most interesting facts to know is that even though auroras are best seen at night, they are actually caused by the Sun. The Sun sends more than heat and light; it sends lots of other energy and small particles our way. The protective magnetic field around Earth shields us from most of the energy and particles, and we don’t even notice them.

But the Sun doesn’t send the same amount of energy all the time. There is a constant streaming solar wind and there are also solar storms. During one kind of solar storm called a coronal mass ejection, the Sun burps out a huge bubble of electrified gas that can travel through space at high speeds.