Aurora Borealis: View from Snowy Northern Norway
Photographer Eva Kristiansen: "In the biting cold, with 13 degrees below zero and a sky clear as crystal, a gentle aurora began to glow quietly. Suddenly it burst into a celestial firework, its colors shooting across the winter landscape like living flames. The cold hung heavy and sharp over everything, yet aurora painted the night with a light so powerful it transformed the silence into pure magic."
Auroras are produced when the Earth's magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color and complexity. [Wikipedia]
Earth auroras have different names depending on the pole they occur at. Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, is the name given to auroras around the north pole and Aurora Australis, or the southern lights, is the name given for auroras around the south pole.
Solid Colored Aurora
Green is common at the upper latitudes, while red is rare. On the other hand, aurora viewed from lower latitudes tend to be red.
Element Emission Colors
Oxygen: The big player in the aurora is oxygen. Oxygen is responsible for the vivid green (wavelength of 557.7 nm) and also for a deep brownish-red (wavelength of 630.0 nm). Pure green and greenish-yellow aurorae result from the excitation of oxygen.
Nitrogen: Nitrogen emits blue (multiple wavelengths) and red light.
Other Gases: Other gases in the atmosphere become excited and emit light, although the wavelengths may be outside of the range of human vision or else too faint to see. Hydrogen and helium, for example, emit blue and purple. Although our eyes cannot see all of these colors, photographic film and digital cameras often record a broader range of hues.
Aurora Colors According to Altitude
Above 150 miles: red, oxygen
Up to 150 miles: green, oxygen
Above 60 miles: purple or violet, nitrogen
Up to 60 miles: blue, nitrogen
The Colors of the Aurora (National Park Service)
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast.
Image Credit: Eva Kristiansen
Capture Location: Tromsø, Norway
Eva's website: https://www.instagram.com/xevitak/
Capture Location: Tromsø, Norway
Eva's website: https://www.instagram.com/xevitak/
Image Date: Nov. 23, 2025
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