New Delhi: A crimson glow lit up the dark sky in parts of Ladakh in a rare stable auroral red arc event at Hanle Dark Sky Reserve in the Himalayas due to the strong solar magnetic storms launched towards Earth.
The solar storms or coronal mass ejections are from the AR13664 region of the Sun that has produced several high energy solar flares, some of which are travelling towards Earth at a speed of 800 km/s, scientists at Centre of Excellence in Space Sciences in India (CESSI), Kolkata, said.
Spectacular auroras or northern lights lit up the skies in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere as skywatchers from Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark and Poland shared pictures and short videos of the dancing lights on social media.
In Ladakh, astronomers at Hanle Dark Sky Reserve saw a red glow on the northwest horizon in the sky from about 1 am on Saturday that continued till early dawn.
“We were fortunate to witness Aurora activities on our all-sky camera during regular telescope observations,” Stanzin Norla, an engineer at Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, said.
He said a faint red glow was visible to the naked eye along the horizon and the event was captured in much detail by a DSLR camera installed at Hanle Dark Sky Reserve.
“It streaked through the sky from about 1 am till 3.30 am,” Stanzin said, adding that the skies turned red along the horizon and to a pinkish hue later.
Dorje Angchuk, an engineer at Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle, described the event as a stable auroral red arc, which was a rare occurrence over the skies at Ladakh.
“Auroras seen near the north or south poles are dynamic events. They keep changing. But the one witnessed at Ladakh was more stable. It is called the stable auroral red arc. The steady glow remained in the sky for a couple of hours,” Angchuk said.
Such events are rare at Hanle because it is located far south, Dibyendu Nandi, head, CESSI at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, said.

Agencies