coreyspowell,
@coreyspowell@mastodon.social avatar

So many beautiful aurora photos going around right now. Wonder where those amazing colors come from? Here's a helpful breakdown.

When you split up the light of a typical aurora, it looks like this.

Many colors from just nitrogen & oxygen!

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial

coreyspowell,
@coreyspowell@mastodon.social avatar

Colors of an aurora depend not only on which element is emitting light, but also on where it is.

Oxygen at high altitudes glows red; at lower altitudes it glows green. Purple nitrogen is lower still.

Atoms are complicated creatures!

richard,
@richard@disabled.social avatar

@coreyspowell Please give credit to who you took this from.

coreyspowell,
@coreyspowell@mastodon.social avatar

@richard The only credit I've been able to find is the name at the bottom of the graphic. I included the full version (not the widely shared crop) for that reason.

ewout,
@ewout@mastodon.social avatar

@coreyspowell I'm a physicist and I didn't understand anything about this explanation. Why is the magnetic field asymmetric? Why does the color depend on the concentration, if it's due to electrons falling back to their ground state (it is, isn't it)? Why would charged particles excite atomic oxygen differently if the concentration is higher?

Idk, nice fonts and everything, but this infographic didn't do much for me.

coreyspowell,
@coreyspowell@mastodon.social avatar

@ewout Please read the previous item in this thread. The linked story addresses all those questions.

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