Northern & Australis Lights (aurora borealis)

THE STARFISH PRIME GEOMAGNETIC STORM
(nuclear auroras) • 9 July 1962

Spaceweather.com published an article about the nuclear induced 'auroras' from 9 July 1962.



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'Nuclear auroras' viewed from Honolulu (left) and a surveillance aircraft (right) on July 9, 1962.

THE STARFISH PRIME GEOMAGNETIC STORM: Sixty years ago, one of the biggest geomagnetic storms of the Space Age struck Earth. It didn't come from the sun.​

"We made it ourselves," recalls Clive Dyer of the University of Surrey Space Centre in Guildford UK. "It was the first anthropogenic space weather event."

On July 9, 1962, the US military detonated a thermonuclear warhead 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean--a test called "Starfish Prime." What happened next surprised everyone. Witnesses from Hawaii to New Zealand reported auroras overhead, magnificent midnight "rainbow stripes" that tropical sky watchers had never seen before. Radios fell silent, then suddenly became noisy as streetlights went dark in Honolulu.

Essentially, Starfish Prime created an artificial solar storm complete with auroras, geomagnetic activity, and blackouts. Much of the chaos that night was caused by the electromagnetic pulse (EMP)--a ferocious burst of radiation that ionized the upper atmosphere. Ionized air over the Pacific pinned down Earth's magnetic field, then let it go again when the ionization subsided. The rebound created a manmade geomagnetic storm for hundreds of miles around the blast zone.​

"The explosion led to the early demise of all the spacecraft in orbit at the time," says Dyer. "These included Ariel-1, the UK's first spacecraft, and Telstar-1, a US communications satellite which had the bad luck to be launched the very next day."

Normally, geomagnetic storms bring down satellites via orbital decay. The upper atmosphere heats up and expands to the point where it can pull satellites down toward Earth. Starfish Prime was different.

"The explosion filled Earth's magnetosphere with energetic electrons, adding them to our planet's natural radiation belts," explains Dyer. These artificial electrons hit satellites hard, degrading their electronics and solar arrays.

solararray2_strip.jpg
Credit: R.E. Fischell, “ANNA-1B Solar Cell Damage Experiment,” Transcript of the Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, April 10, 1963, Washington DC.

"Ariel-1 became almost unusable after only 4 days due to power degradation and tape recorder failure," recalls Dyer. "The Telstar satellite lasted until November 1962 when its command decoder failed. It still managed to provide the first transatlantic TV feed, synchronize UK/US time to 1 microsecond and inspired the Tornado's rock classic 'Telstar,' which used recordings of a flushing toilet played backwards."

The flux of energetic electrons trapped in Earth's magnetosphere remained high for years, hammering satellites deep into the 1960s.

Dyer, who is widely known for his studies of extreme space weather, was still in school when the explosion occured. It set the stage for his entire career. "Starfish Prime," he says, "was a defining event."
 
Northern Lights over Stockholm
15 Sep 2022

I was so busy fiddling with a new company's ftp server routines, after they bought up the company where i have my homepage... and I understood absolutely nothing how to access my old homepage, passwords, and all the now different how to do's.:umm:

So, while being irritated and busy - there were auroras going on !!

When I had finished up and went out to the balcony... wohoooo - there they were. Not easily visible to the naked eye (at first), but pretty pronounced though the camera. They even developed further, showing some features, while I took photos. I checked a Swedish Aurora Facebook group; they reported widespread Northern lights visible over Southern and middle Sweden already showing up around 22:30 last evening. (KP index only 3)

Here are a few highlights i captured around 01.20

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Lightning over the Baltic Sea

Northern Lights are still ongoing at 01:47, albeit too weak to see with the naked eye in a bright city (plus a strong moon shining). One little detail was cool; while i was taking photos, in the periphery of my eyes, I noticed strange flashes. It turned out, that a few lightning strikes went off over the Baltic sea around 150 km east of my location.

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After searching a bit, I did not know exactly where to put these beautiful pictures, so Moderators, feel free to move it in a more appropriate thread if you think it's better.

A Rare Glimpse of Comet Leonard’s Last Moments Wins the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest

The brilliant Comet Leonard put on a mesmerizing performance late last year when it streaked across the sky on Christmas Day. Expelled from the solar system shortly after, the celestial matter captivated photographers around the world during its brief stint of visibility, including Gerald Rhemann who captured the illuminated body as its gas tail disconnected from its nucleus and was swept away by solar wind. The incredibly rare and brief event also garnered Rhemann the top prize in this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest.

© Gerald Rhemann, Tivoli Southern Sky Guest Farm, Khomas, Namibia, December 25, 2021:

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The two following also won a price.

“Winged Aurora” © Alexander Stepanenko, Murmansk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia, January 15, 2022:

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“The Night Highway” © Filip Hrebenda, Stokksnes Peninsula, Iceland, April 11, 2021:

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Follow up on inusual auroras and protons event mentionned earlier :

Germany
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The auroras in Europe were so bright, they could be seen even from brightly-lit urban areas. Thomas Hunger sends this report from Berlin, Germany: "I run Northern Lights tours in Tromsø, Norway, but would have never dreamt of seeing auroras from my home town of Berlin. I stepped on the balcony and enjoyed a sight that in a city of 4 million inhabitants might just have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

The solar wind density reached a peak of 60 p/cm³ around 03:00 UTC en April 24. This time there is justification for this phenomenon.

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From Spaceweather.com

"
MYSTERIOUS "AURORA BLOBS" EXPLAINED:

Europeans are still trying to wrap their minds around what happened after sunset on April 23, 2023. Everyone knew that a CME was coming; photographers were already outside waiting for auroras. But when the auroras appeared, they were very strange.

"I had never seen anything quite like it," says Heiko Ulbricht of Saxony, Germany. "The auroras began to tear themselves apart, pulsating as they formed individual blobs that floated high in the sky."





"It literally took my breath away," he says. "My pulse was still racing hours later!" The same blobs were sighted in France and Poland, and in Denmark they were caught flashing like a disco strobe light.

Ordinary auroras don't act like this.

Indeed, "these were not ordinary auroras," confirms space physicist Toshi Nishimura of Boston University. "They are called 'proton auroras,' and they come from Earth's ring current system."

Most people don't realize that Earth has rings. Unlike Saturn's rings, which are vast disks of glittering ice, Earth's rings are invisible to the naked eye. They are made of electricity--a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet. The ring current skims the orbits of geosynchronous satellites and plays a huge role in determining the severity of geomagnetic storms.




Sometimes during strong geomagnetic storms, protons rain down from the ring system, causing a secondary shower of electrons, which strike the atmosphere and make auroras. Earth-orbiting satellites have actually seen these protons on their way down. Ordinary auroras, on the other hand, are caused by particles from more distant parts of Earth's magnetosphere and have nothing to do with Earth's ring current.

Mystery solved? Not entirely. "We still don't know why proton auroras seem to tear themselves apart in such a dramatic way," says Nishimura. "This is a question for future research."

"It was very exciting to watch," says Ulbricht. "I definitely want to see them again."

Good, because they'll be back. Solar Cycle 25 ramping up to a potentially-strong Solar Maximum next year. Future storms will surely knock more protons loose from the ring current system.

Here's what to look for: (1) Proton auroras tend to appear around sunset. Why? Electric fields in Earth's magnetosphere push the protons toward the dusk not dawn side of our planet. (2) Proton auroras love to pulse--a sign of plasma wave activity in Earth's ring current. (3) Proton auroras are sometimes accompanied by deep red arcs of light (SARs), the glow of heat leaking from the ring current system. These red arcs were also seen on April 23rd.

Solar Max is coming. Let the proton rain begin! "
 
The aurora activity currently occurring over Eurasia is exceptional - STEVE has been spotted in the UK; deep red aurora in Crimea - and i don't think it can really be explained by the relatively normal geomagnetic activity, either. A selection of tweets below - but the activity is currently ongoing, so there may be more to come:
 
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The aurora activity currently occurring over Eurasia is exceptional - STEVE has been spotted in the UK; deep red aurora in Crimea - and i don't think it can really be explained by the relatively normal geomagnetic activity, either. A selection of tweets below - but the activity is currently ongoing, so there may be more to come:
Chad,

Yep, it is really strange in russian southern regions. Here, near moscow, we did not see it because of clouds/rainy weather.
Basically saw it on the news💁‍♂️

The Northern lights were seen in the sky over the Rostov region

Scientists have explained why it is red in the south of Russia
Residents of the South of Russia, including the Rostov region, observed the Northern lights on the evening of November 5. In social networks, eyewitnesses share photos of the sky, painted in bright red.

According to astronomer Alexander Ivanov, the aurora appeared due to a magnetic storm.

"The aurora borealis arises from proton impacts on the magnetosphere. Magnetic storms have arisen recently, since the afternoon of November 5. They continue for three hours in a row. The glow is just connected with this," the expert told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
A couple of fotos:
 
Geez, that deep red is very dramatic, and, could we even call it “scary” or possibly “biblically apocalyptic”?
I grew up viewing Northern lights, and very rarely were they anything that foreboding colour.
Greens, pinks, and pale purples are the norm.

Of course it’s a ‘coincidence’ that experiments are being done at the HAARP facility at this time.
They started on November 4, and will continue to November 8, 2023.
From the article:
“The airglow, if visible, will appear as a faint red or possibly green patch. Because of the way the human eye operates, the airglow might be easier to see when looking just to the side.”

HAARP artificial airglow may be widely visible in Alaska
Nov. 2, 2023​

The article states “Alaskans and visitors may be able to see an artificial airglow in the sky created by the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program during a four-day research campaign that starts Saturday.”
But further down, it’s mentioned:
“Each day, the airglow could be visible up to 300 hundred miles from the HAARP facility in Gakona. The site lies about 200 miles northeast of Anchorage and 230 miles southeast of Fairbanks, or about 300 to 350 kilometers.”
 
Red auroras
in particularly are rarely as bright and that saturated as in (some) photos (whether taken digitally or with film); red always pops out a lot stronger compared to what the naked eyes sees. I mean sure auroras can get very bright in rare cases - but photos always appear to make then look even brighter.

11 Nov 1989 - stockholm
I remember at least two times in my life intense red auroral outbreaks. They appeared dark red, like a ruby or Garnet Gemstone type of red.

On 11 Nov 1989 it was the first time i ever saw Northern lights - and boy what a show !! One i never forget; coming straight down from the zenith, deep dark intense curtains and rays of red aurora - covering middle Sweden. This intensity went on for 4 hours without breaks.

Luckily i was a conductor at a local railway in Stockholm, and we had super clear skies - so i could follow the auroras with my mouth open, totally startled. I mean they were ONLY dark red all the time. No other colors appeared. Unfortunately - that evening i didn’t bring my camera with me :-/(which i used to have with me most of the time)

The other time, was Nov 2001 over Stockholm with intense dark red glow covering large parts of the sky. I have shown this photo before, i believe

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Yes,

Some of the pictures from the Auroa over Donbass and Crimea are spectacular, I had never seen anything quite like it, purple and green definitely, that scarlet red, I think it's the first time I have seen it


As I was doing a search on Twitter, I caught this Timelapse.. from Australia, Southern Hemisphere.


Centra Europe


Slovakia


Must have been quite the storm, a G3 according to Spaceweather
 
In an article : Aurora colors: What causes them and why do they vary?

"

Red aurora​


Red auroras are comparatively less frequent and are usually associated with intense solar activity.

They occur when solar particles react with oxygen at higher altitudes, generally around 180 to 250 miles (300 to 400 km), according to the CSA.

At this height, oxygen is less concentrated and is excited at a higher frequency or wavelength, making reds visible. Red auroras are often seen at the higher edges of the display."

and I remember reading elsewhere that moonlight can also enhance the phenomenon...
We're heading towards SolarMaximum, forecasted around late 2024-early 2025, thus we should expect more impressive displays in the sky.
 
We had a lot of Auroras in Austria - obviously in many parts. of this small country. It is reported from the southern part mostly. That is definitely unusual. We normally don't see any.

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polarlicht kärnten.jpegThe next one I found in Switzerland. The cloud on the right side looks a little bit creepy. . . .
polarlicht schweiz trogen.jpeg

And this one I found for Ukraine . . .
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We had them too over Italy yesterday, from the North till the South, red auroras.

So it seems it was a almost worldwide spread phenomenon which I bet It doesn't happen too often.
 

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Trying to look up low-latitude auroras, it appears the red colour is from oxygen and higher above the Earth than greenish auroras.
Low-latitude aurorae
spaceweb@oulu.fi - last update: 30 November 1998, 1730 UT (RR)
Low energy electrons produce red aurora where the 630.0 nm oxygen O(1D) emission is stronger than other emissions. Because of the nature of the O(1D) emission these auroras are located at very high altitudes (200-1000 km).

Low latitude Aurora
  • Nov 2020
Low latitude auroras are extremely rare. In this work, we study the aurora observed on November 14 and 15, 1789. For this event, relationship between sub-zenith point (overhead) and southernmost point is 30°/17°, further south of the aurora that occurred after the Carrington event in 1859 (41°/20°). This was the first low latitude aurora to be studied. This study was carried out by three Mexican scientists:Antonio de León y Gama, José Antonio Alzate and Francisco Dimas Rangel. In our work, we use their observations and reproduce their calculations. Our conclusions are: a) Aurora’s height was greater than 464 km; b) Observed red color coincides with a high altitude aurora;
(13) (PDF) Low latitude Aurora. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345257666_Low_latitude_Aurora [accessed Nov 06 2023].

It appears in the images that the aurora light in Turkey is closer to the horizon, than the images from Austria. A light at an altitude of 464 km, taking the number from the article, though all we know is that "Observed red color coincides with a high altitude aurora;" would be visible from even far away. In other words, if one is that high above the surface of the Earth, the horizon of the Earth is more than 2600 km away. That is what I got using this calculator Distance to Visible Horizon Calculator | Calculate Distance to Visible Horizon

Here is an image that shows how the colours vary with altitude:
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And another which gives a limit of 800 km for the red auroras:
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It is possible that recent rain following low pressure systems from the Atlantic has cleared the atmosphere over Europe of dust and made the display more spectacular than it would have been, had it happened in the heat of summer.
 
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