A transatlantic flight took to the skies, cruising along the Alaska-Canada border. The pilot of the aircraft promised his passengers that they would see a beautiful natural spectacle—they would enjoy the northern lights first-hand. Auroras occur when the solar wind presses against the magnetosphere (the area of space controlled by the Earth's magnetic field) and pushes charged particles (electrons) into the atmosphere at high speeds. This was explained by the flight attendant, who was stunned to see for the first time an abnormality in the visual display.
Proposed call image
The distraught co-pilot informs the capital that the instrumentation of the ship with more than three hundred passengers is failing, the gauges have literally gone haywire. Particles run like children in search of oxygen and nitrogen particles and transfer their energy to the two types of gases. Oxygen and nitrogen do not retain that energy but lose it again in the form of photons, which are tiny flashes of light. But this time, as the number of particles bombarding the atmosphere engulfs the aircraft, the oxygen and nitrogen begin to emit so much light that they mow everyone down for seconds.
The gases in the Earth's atmosphere release light in different colours depending on the type of gas they are and how high up in the atmosphere they are. The most common colour (a pale yellow-green) is produced when energetically charged particles hit oxygen molecules at about 95 km altitude, and the plane was at precisely that altitude. Oxygen at higher altitudes (about 320 km above us) produces ruby-red auroras. In seconds, we went from flashing green to red. Everyone knew they had reached a significant altitude because of the gravitational forces endured for moments.
Nitrogen at lower altitudes produces blue auroras, and when it collides with particles at higher altitudes, it produces violet and purple hues. When these hues mix in the sky, pink and white tones are produced. At this precise moment when the particle collision occurs, the aircraft disappears with all its crew members without a trace...
Courtesy Stefan Forster: Nordic Islands seen in their surreal light
Those on the ground, who had been waiting for several nights to see the northern lights, did not see any aircraft but were amazed by the natural spectacle before their eyes. For the expert guide leading the tourists on the ground, this was a unique event in his two decades of seeing kaleidoscopes in these areas.
