Why everyone is chasing the northern lights right now

HostI feel like every time I open my phone lately, I see these crazy neon streaks of green and purple. It's like the whole world suddenly decided to become a nature photographer overnight. My friends in places like England and even down in the middle of the United States are posting these shots, and I'm just sitting here wondering if I'm missing out on some huge cosmic party. What's actually going on up there?

GuestThe sun is having a very busy year. It goes through cycles that last about eleven years, swinging from quiet to restless and back again. Right now, we're hitting the top of that cycle, which people call the solar peak. The sun is throwing out more big bursts of energy than it has in a long time. When those bursts hit our neck of the woods, they shake up the air and create those lights. A few months ago, we had a level five storm, which is as big as they get. That made the lights show up in places that almost never see them, like Alabama.

HostSo it's not just that everyone has better phone cameras now, though that probably helps. But I have to ask, is it really what it looks like in the pictures? Because I have stood out in a cold field before, staring at what looked like a faint grey cloud, while the person next to me was showing me a screen that looked like a laser light show.

GuestThat's the big catch. Our eyes are great for some things, but they're not very good at seeing color in the dark. We have cells in our eyes that handle low light, but they don't really pick up green or red very well. To us, a medium-strength light might just look like a ghostly white mist. But your phone can keep its eye open for seconds at a time. It drinks in all that light that your eye misses. In a way, the camera is telling a truth that your eyes can't see, but it also makes the experience look much more vivid than it feels in the moment.

HostThat feels like a bit of a letdown. It's like showing up to a concert and realizing the band sounds way better on the album. But people are still spending thousands of dollars to fly to the top of the world just for a glimpse of this. Is there something they're getting that's not just a good photo for the internet?

GuestI think there is. There's a huge difference between seeing a still photo and seeing the lights move. When the sun is really active, those lights don't just sit there. They dance. They ripple like a curtain in the wind or shoot across the sky like a searchlight. That movement is something a photo can't capture. Plus, there's the hunt itself. You can't just turn them on. You have to check the weather, look at the solar data, and drive out away from city lights. There's real drama because you might wait for hours in the freezing cold and see nothing but clouds. When the sky finally starts to glow, it feels like a hard-earned gift.

HostBut that sounds like a lot of work for a maybe. If the sun is at this peak right now, does that mean I can just walk out my front door tonight and see them, or is this still mostly an Arctic thing?

GuestIt depends on how big the sun's latest tantrum is. Most of the time, the lights stay in a ring around the North and South Poles. To see them regularly, you still need to be somewhere like Alaska or northern Norway. But because we're at this peak, those big storms are more likely. When those happen, the ring of light stretches out like a rubber band being pulled toward the middle of the earth. The tricky part is that we only get a day or two of warning. The sun sends out a big cloud of particles, and we have to wait for it to travel ninety-three million miles to see if it actually hits us.

HostSo we're basically waiting for a giant splash from space. What about the colors, though? I see mostly green, but sometimes there are these deep reds or even pinks. Is that just different filters, or is the sun doing something different?

GuestThat's all about what the sun’s particles are hitting in our air. Most of the time, they hit oxygen about sixty miles up, and that gives off that classic green. If they hit oxygen even higher up, you get those rare reds. If they hit nitrogen, you might see blue or purple. It's like the sky is a giant neon sign, and different gases glow in different colors when they get zapped. During that big storm in May, the red was so bright in some places that people thought there was a fire on the horizon.

GuestThe most advanced satellites we have still can't beat the simple thrill of watching a green ribbon start to unroll across a pitch-black sky.

HostThose neon streaks on my phone might just be enough to get me out into a cold field with a heavy coat and a lot of patience.