A Roscosmos cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station filmed sweeping auroras over Earth on Tuesday as a powerful solar storm set the planet’s upper atmosphere aglow with vivid color.
Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, a member of Russia’s space agency, shared footage from orbit and described an intense display that washed the night side of Earth in unusual red tones.
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“During yesterday’s strongest storm in two decades, there was plenty of red glow. It felt as if we were literally sailing inside that light,” Kud-Sverchkov wrote on his Telegram channel.
The aurora, often called the northern or southern lights, forms when solar storms send high-speed charged particles racing toward Earth. Those particles interact with gases in the upper atmosphere, creating shimmering curtains and arcs of light. Green is the most common color, while pink and red can appear during particularly energetic events.
From the vantage point of the space station, which circles Earth several times a day, the phenomenon unfurls along the planet’s curved horizon, illuminating vast swaths of the atmosphere at once. In Kud-Sverchkov’s video, bands of aurora ripple and pulse, their red hues bleeding into the more familiar green — a palette rarely seen at such intensity.
The cosmonaut’s account underscored both the force of the solar activity and the uniquely immersive perspective of crews in low-Earth orbit. “It felt as if we were literally sailing inside that light,” he wrote, capturing the way auroras can envelop the station’s path as it crosses into higher latitudes.
Solar storms are driven by bursts of energy from the sun that accelerate particles through space. When those particles interact with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, the result can range from faint green arcs to vibrant, multi-colored waves that dance across the sky. While observers on the ground most often report green, displays of pink and red — like the ones Kud-Sverchkov highlighted — signal a storm strong enough to excite different atmospheric layers and produce broader color.
Roscosmos regularly shares images and video taken by its crews, and the latest clip adds to a growing body of orbital views of space-weather events. For people far below, auroras remain an elusive spectacle bound by latitude, cloud cover and timing. From the space station, the same celestial show stretches for thousands of miles, revealing structures and shades that can be hard to perceive from the ground.
Kud-Sverchkov did not provide technical details with the footage, but his note about the “strongest storm in two decades” placed the event among the more vivid in recent memory. The images, and the cosmonaut’s description of “sailing” through light, offered a rare and immediate portrait of the aurora’s power at the height of a geomagnetic surge.
Whether seen from a snowy field or from 250 miles above Earth, the aurora remains among the planet’s most striking natural displays. This week’s orbiting view, shared by a Roscosmos crew member, shows how a major solar storm can broaden the palette far beyond familiar greens, turning the night sky crimson at the edge of space.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
