‘Truly amazing’: Indian Institute of Astrophysics shares time-lapse video of aurora witnessed in Ladakh

“#Aurora from #Ladakh! This is a time-lapse of the sky taken by a 360 deg camera at from #Hanle on 22/23 April night. You can see the aurora lights due to an intense geomagnetic storm that hit the Earth. It is extremely rare to see aurora at such a low latitude! @dstindia (1/n),” read the tweet.

#Aurora from #Ladakh!
This is a time-lapse of the sky taken by a 360 deg camera at from #Hanle on 22/23 April night. You can see the aurora lights due to an intense geomagnetic storm that hit the Earth. It is extremely rare to see aurora at such a low latitude! @dstindia (1/n) pic.twitter.com/gGbrw86vsb

— IIAstrophysics (@IIABengaluru) April 29, 2023

A flurry of reactions flooded the comments section. A user commented, “Wow, this is truly amazing!”

“Witnessing the lights is already a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but to see them in such a low latitude is simply mind-blowing! Thanks for sharing this magnificent view of the sky with us!” said another.

A third user wrote, “This is somewhat crazy and unbelievable. I always slept on #aurora being seen somewhere far in the Alaskan wild but in #Ladakh Maybe I’ve slept too long.”

“Yes.. It is a rare event.. M it’s amazing it was visible from Ladakh,” said another.

Elaborating about the display of lights, Wageesh Mishra, Assistant Professor at IIA, was quoted as saying in the comments section that on April 21, the Sun launched Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) towards the Earth. CMEs are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun’s corona. The CME led to the auroral activity and it came to lower latitudes.

“At 11:42 PM on 21 Apr the Sun launched a coronal mass ejection towards the Earth. This CME (speed of 500-600 km/s) was associated with an M1 class solar flare. The CME arrived at Earth late on April 23 at 10 PM, says @wageeshmishra.(2/n),” read the comment.

Another comment read, “This geoeffective CME led to an excellent night for auroral activity. The aurora came to lower-than-usual latitudes overnight leading to rare sightings from Europe, China & Ladakh in India. Such a severe geomagnetic storm last occurred in 2015 says @wageeshmishra(3/n).”