Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thedoc on 01/05/2013 10:30:02

Title: Do auroras occur in clouds?
Post by: thedoc on 01/05/2013 10:30:02
Yifei Song  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
I am a student from China but living in Germany. This January I luckily saw some amazing displays of auroras under Swedish Lapland skies. But at about 2 a.m., just at that moment something mysterious and extraordinary happened and it has been on my mind for too long, I'm still so puzzled!

The night sky was so quiet - no aurora anymore and I was heading home, then I saw some clouds became reddish (in that direction, there were some auroras earlier)... as soon as the red color vanished, 'bang---' (not literally, but as if there were such 'terrifying' effect of sound), a very strong display of green lights which looked just like lightning (horizontal instead of vertical)... just like explosion!!! It lasted only for a sec or 2. Then the red color appeared again in clouds and vanished and this green lightning-alike  'explosion' occurred again... So it repeated 3 times!!!

Do you perhaps have any idea what that might be? Any possible explanations? I know why auroras occur, there are the slow and fast solar winds colliding in the magnetic field..., but about this one single happening I feel completely in dark... I told everyone what I saw, no one believed me.

Please help me solve and understand this mystery! I'd appreciate it so much to hear anything back!

What do you think?