TEMPLE, Texas — Skywatchers around the world were treated to a special sight on Thursday, Oct. 10 as the northern lights put on a dazzling show of colors across the night sky.
According to Space.com, the lights, or auroras, were caused by a strong geomagnetic storm caused by a blast of energy, or "solar wind" from the sun. The storm was so strong that it allowed the lights to be visible much farther south than normal, even as far south as some areas of Central Texas.
The light show was not limited just to viewers on Earth however. Astronaut Don Pettit shared a stunning picture of the aurora from aboard the International Space Station. In a post on X, Pettit stated he and fellow astronaut Matthew Dominick were about to go to sleep when they noticed the eye-catching sight.
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"The sun goes burp and the atmosphere turns red," Pettit said in the post. "Spectacular not only from Earth but from orbit as well."
Pettit said he and Dominick quickly set up their cameras to capture the display.
"Stunning was the word," Pettit described. "It looked like [the station] had been shrunk to some miniature dimension and inserted into a neon sign. We were not flying 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 the aurora; we were flying 𝘪𝘯 the aurora. And it was blood red."
Pettit said they used four cameras to photograph the aurora, "all snapping shutters as fast as they could, creating a syncopated rhythm that accented Nature’s artistic display presented before us."
For more information on the aurora, including what causes it and how you can see it, visit this link.
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