Rare purple and blue aurora appeared during Monday night's solar storm
Monday night featured the best outburst of the Northern Lights so far in 2026, with people as far south as Alabama capturing images of the colorful sky.
Residents of South Indian Lake, Manitoba, braved bitter cold weather to observe the stunning northern lights appear amid geomagnetic storms on Jan. 19.
The northern lights put on a show across Asia, Europe and parts of North America Monday night, with colors glowing in the sky for millions to see.
The aurora borealis was the result of an eruption on the sun over the past weekend, which sent a massive cloud of charged particles toward the Earth. When the particles collided with Earth's atmosphere, they set off a display of colors. The hue depends on the gas interactions and conditions.
Monday night's light show was not as widespread or as impressive as other showings in recent years, such as the historic outbreak of May 2024, but people still managed to capture images of the colorful sky as far south as Alabama.
Typically, the aurora is green, pink and red, but some people Monday night were treated to rare ribbons of purple and blue.
The colors are created when charged particles from the sun interact with oxygen and nitrogen at different layers of Earth's atmosphere. The common red and green colors are connected to oxygen, while purple and blue are caused by nitrogen.
The solar storm responsible for the aurora is waning, with the lights likely being limited to the typical areas closer to the poles Tuesday night.
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