On Thursday (Nov. 3) a mysterious blue ribbon of sunshine appeared within the skies over Abisko, a small village within the coronary heart of Swedish Lapland.
“Our staff of photographers has been photographing the night time sky for greater than a decade and this occasion was not like something we have now ever seen,” stated Chad Blakley, the director of the aurora tour firm Lights over Lapland (opens in new tab).
At first, skywatchers believed it was an aurora, albeit a really unusual one. However because the minutes handed they watched the blue gentle stay stationary — a stark distinction to the inexperienced aurora dancing round it. It was then they realized the blue glow was one thing somewhat distinctive.
Associated: The place to see the northern lights: 2022 aurora borealis information
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The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are brought about when energized particles from the solar slam into Earth‘s higher environment — the ionosphere — and are redirected in direction of the poles by Earth’s magnetic subject. The colours are dictated by the chemical composition of Earth’s environment, with inexperienced produced by oxygen molecules and pink by nitrogen.
Figuring out this was no strange aurora, Blakley reached out to specialists within the subject to attempt to verify what could possibly be inflicting the unusual gentle present.
“My first port of name was Dr. Tony Phillips of spaceweather.com,” stated Blakley. “Dr Phillips is an outdated pal of mine, and he was as puzzled by the blue glow as I used to be.”
Based on Blakely, Phillips continued to achieve out to different specialists within the subject and ultimately got here to the conclusion that the odd blue aurora was presumably attributable to a Russian submarine testing ICBMs (Intercontinental ballistic missiles).
A number of information stories from the Eurasian Instances (opens in new tab) and Reuters (opens in new tab) reported that on the identical day because the blue “aurora”, Russia had efficiently test-fired a Bulava ballistic missile from the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Generalissimus Suvorov within the White Sea.
This is not the primary time a missile take a look at has presumably brought about such an odd “aurora” gentle present. Based on spaceweather.com (opens in new tab) on Oct. 27, 2017, related blue ribbons have been noticed within the skies above the Arctic Circle, after Russia launched quite a few missiles throughout a battle drill.
In the event you hope to see the northern lights your self, take a look at our information on the place and the best way to {photograph} the aurora. And in the event you’re hoping to seize them on digicam, think about our picks for the finest tools for aurora pictures and the best way to edit aurora images. In the event you want tools, our roundups for the finest cameras for astrophotography and finest lenses for astrophotography will help be sure you’re prepared for the following aurora occasion.
Unable to attend an aurora gentle present in particular person? Gentle over Lapland additionally hosts the longest-running aurora webcam on Earth. It has been capturing nonetheless pictures of the night time sky each 5 seconds for greater than a decade. You’ll be able to view pictures from this webcam and in addition a real-time high-definition aurora webcam on their web site (opens in new tab).
Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and Fb (opens in new tab).
