Recently, the Hanle and Merak observatories in Ladakh spotted a phenomenon uncommon in India — an intense red aurora.
While the Hanle observatory was able to capture the lights towards the northern horizon, the view of the camera at Merak on the banks of Pangong Tso was obstructed by high mountains.
About Auroras
- Auroras are patterns of bright lights in the sky that are seen when particles ejected by the Sun interact with the magnetic field around the Earth.
- The phenomenon is usually visible closer to the poles. 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.
- The number of solar flares on the Sun increases and decreases during a 11-year cycle. At present, we are in the ascending phase of the cycle, meaning that there are likely to be more solar flares in the coming year. The peak of the cycle is likely to be reached in 2025, after which the activity will start going down.
- The latest auroral activity has been linked to a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) — an eruption from the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere that is hotter than its surface — that occurred at the Sun two days prior. Auroras are not just something that happen on Earth.
- If a planet has an atmosphere and magnetic field, they probably have auroras. We’ve seen amazing auroras on Jupiter and Saturn.
