🩸Extremely rare 4K “blood aurora” dancing over Iceland last weekend 🩸

💚 On the 13th of January 2023, people in Iceland witnessed an extremely rare phenomenon: The so-called blood aurora, a strong red auroral display clearly visible to the bare eyes. The aurora is caused by charged particles in the solar wind that collide with charged particles in our atmosphere. At different altitudes, different gases can be found, and their concentrations vary. Depending on the altitude and elements involved, different colors will result. Oxygen is responsible for the red northern lights which occur at higher altitudes, generally above 125 miles. At this height, oxygen is less concentrated and is excited at a higher wavelength, making red visible. During exceptionally intense geomagnetic storms, an above-average number of solar particles often manage to escape our magnetic shield, and the glow produced can be so intense and diffuse that the whole sky turns red. This is an extremely rare occurrence.💚