Stunning video captures bright green northern lights shimmering in Alaska park’s sky

Nothing compares to seeing the northern lights in person, but a video shot at an Alaska national park comes pretty close.

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve captured a video last week of the magical lights — known scientifically as aurora borealis — lighting up the night sky.

“While nothing can replace the experience in person, modern cameras can show us a look at these magnificent northern lights in real-time,” the park said in a Facebook post. “Last week: the aurora showed mild activity with bright green bands of light, easily visible to the observant eye!”

The northern lights happen when a “coronal mass ejection,” or a big burst of solar wind and magnetic fields, mixes with elements in the atmosphere, according to the National Park Service.

“Solar winds stream away from the sun at speeds of about 1 million miles per hour and reach the earth roughly 40 hours after leaving the sun,” NPS said on its website. “­As the electrons enter the earth’s upper atmosphere, they will encounter atoms of oxygen and nitrogen at altitudes from 20 to 200 miles above the earth’s surface.”

The color of the aurora depends on the atom that gets stuck. A green flare means an oxygen atom at up to 150 miles in altitude is stuck. Purple and violet flares mean nitrogen above 60 miles in altitude, according to the National Park Service.

Glacier Bay’s sky lit up with bright green aurora above the Bartlett Cove dock, the park said.

“The green bands of light shimmer alongside twinkling stars and move slowly across the sky,” Glacier Bay said.

This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 3:05 PM with the headline "Stunning video captures bright green northern lights shimmering in Alaska park’s sky."