The aurora borealis illuminated the San Luis Valley’s skies from every corner on Tuesday evening. A repeat performance is possible for Wednesday’s night skies — at least in some states.
The colorful northern lights stunned Valley skywatchers, pulling residents out of their homes to witness the natural phenomenon. Alamosa Citizen photographer Owen Woods positioned himself at the Alamosa Disc Golf course to capture some of the more stunning visuals.
Other photographers in Del Norte, Monte Vista, Antonito, La Jara, Center, among other locations, uploaded images onto The Citizen’s Facebook page to reflect the auroras dazzling the Valley’s skies.
Colorado was among the few states where the auroras were visible on Tuesday. Wednesday’s repeat could bring the northern lights to around a dozen states.
Here’s more explanation from National Geographic:
What are auroras, or the northern and southern lights?
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, coined the term aurora in 1619 after the Roman goddess of dawn — mistakenly believing it to be the reflection of sunlight off the atmosphere.
In fact, both northern and southern lights are caused by the interaction of gases in Earth’s atmosphere with the solar wind: a stream of electrically charged particles, called ions, that shoot out from the sun in all directions.
When the solar wind reaches Earth, it slams into the planet’s magnetic field, producing currents of charged particles that flow toward the poles. Some of the ions become trapped in a layer of the atmosphere called the ionosphere, where they collide with gas atoms — primarily oxygen and nitrogen — and “excite” them with extra energy. This energy then gets released as particles of light, or photons.
Why are auroras different colors?
An aurora’s colors signify where in the atmosphere, and with which gases, all of this is happening.
For example, it takes almost two minutes for an excited oxygen atom to emit a red photon, and if one atom collides with another during that time, the process may be interrupted or terminated. So, when we see red auroras, they are most likely at the highest levels of the ionosphere, approximately 150 miles (240 kilometers) high, where there are fewer oxygen atoms to interfere with one another.
In contrast, green photons are discharged in less than a second, so are more common in moderately dense parts of the atmosphere, 60 to 150 miles (100 to 240 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.