What Are The Northern Lights Colors?

Most people expect the Northern Lights to be green. And usually, they are. But during intense solar storms, the sky can explode into shades of pink, purple, red, and even blue.

The colors you see depend on two invisible factors happening in space right now:
1. Which gas is being hit (Oxygen or Nitrogen).
2. How hard it is being hit (Solar Wind Speed).

Below is our Live Aurora Palette, which analyzes real-time satellite data to predict which colors are physically possible in the sky at this exact moment.

💚 Green (The Most Common)

Cause: Low-altitude Oxygen (60-150 miles up).
Why: Our eyes are most sensitive to green light, and oxygen is abundant at this altitude. When the solar wind hits these atoms, they emit a specific wavelength of green light (557.7 nm).

💜 Purple & Pink (The Fast Movers)

Cause: Nitrogen (below 60 miles).
Why: To get this low in the atmosphere, the solar wind particles need to be moving very fast (usually over 600 km/s). They “punch” through the oxygen layer and hit the nitrogen below, causing it to glow pink or purple. This is often seen at the very bottom of aurora curtains.

❤️ Red (The Rare Beauty)

Cause: High-altitude Oxygen (above 150 miles).
Why: At very high altitudes, oxygen is less dense. It takes a long time for these atoms to emit red light. If the solar wind is too dense or active, it interrupts this process. Therefore, pure red auroras are rare and usually only seen during massive geomagnetic storms.

Q: Why do cameras see more color than my eyes?
A: Human eyes are not good at seeing color in the dark (our “cones” shut down). Cameras use long exposures to collect light over several seconds, revealing the true vibrant colors that our eyes perceive as faint grey or white.

Q: What is the rarest color?
A: Blue. It requires nitrogen to be hit at very high energies during extremely violent solar storms. It is almost never seen by the naked eye.