A WILD DISPLAY OF AIRGLOW: Last week on May 30th, MaryBeth Kiczenski of Munising, Michigan, drove to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in search of auroras. A stream of solar wind was buffeting Earth's magnetic field, and Northern Lights were a definite possibility. Instead of auroras, however, "I saw some pretty wild airglow!" she says.

Pic: [link to spaceweathergallery.com]

"I was in awe over how surreal it looked!!" says Kiczenski.

Although airglow looks like the aurora borealis, it is not. Auroras are caused by gusts of solar wind. Airglow is caused by a complex assortment of chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere. These reactions get started during daylight hours when the atmosphere is bathed in strong UV radiation from the sun. At night we see the afterglow, colored green by oxygen atoms 90-100 km high or sometimes red by hydroxyl ions 86-87 km high.

[link to spaceweather.com]