Maine’s Recent Aurora Display Revealed a Secret You Might’ve Missed

There are no accidents in nature...

Can you really name one thing in all of nature that's truly an accident? I'm not talking about true accidents. Of course, things like car accidents are totally random. But as far as whatever happens in what we call nature, there's always a reason for everything. For instance, I used to wonder if ticks truly had any purpose.

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They do! Basically they're little blood-filled protein bombs for the critters that do eat them. Therefore, necessary. So no matter how useless, or even beautiful, something may seem, there's a hidden story that we may, or may not know. Another great example I just came across... The colors of the Northern Lights actually have a story of their own.

The colors of the Aurora events, indicate their altitude above the Earth.

As I stood out on my deck last week, gazing up at the electric dance going above me, I had no idea that there was so much more to what I was seeing. When you're looking at the various colors that move about, they're also telling you how far above the Earth they are. I assumed they were just there to be beautiful. I had no idea there was so much more to it.

Green is the most common color, of which there was plenty the other night. They happen when charged particles collide with lots of oxygen, and are typically between 60-190 miles above us. Red colors indicate there's some pretty major solar activity, and occur much higher up at heights of 180-250 miles.

Other colors are in the game too, and some were actually pretty rare.

Blue and purple, as well as red, are fairly rare to see. They're caused by charged particles colliding with concentrated nitrogen. They only tend to appear when the activity is off-the-charts. The blue/purple auroras happen at less then 60 miles above Earth's surface. For comparison, the International Space Station is about 250 miles above, and shuttles orbit at around 115 miles.

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Imagine being immersed in those colors aboard the ISS?! Crazy! But it's true, until today, I had no idea that the colors meant anything other than the result of the solar flares hitting our atmosphere. But again, there are no accidents in nature. There's always something to learn.