Man Captures Stunning Video of 'Aurora Rush' Glowing Bright Green Across the Sky

Sitting on the eastern limb of the town of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Manitoba boasts of being one of the most magical places on Earth. Sewn like an iridescent gemstone into the planet’s North Pole, Manitoba calls those who are not afraid to venture out when the skies go dark. When looming midnights engulf its forested landscapes and glacial lakes, the Canadian settlement comes alive with a dance show, both mysterious and mystical. When RJ Roldan (@rjayroldan), an educator in Northern Manitoba, stepped out of his home recently, he couldn’t stop getting possessed by an adrenaline rush that mirrored the electric rippling of the “aurora rush” that had materialized in the skies above his head. “Watching the #NorthernLights tonight,” he shared with his followers on X in September.

Northern Lights is used to refer to the aurora that graces the skies of places located at the North Pole. With such an enormous glitter that they explode into the sky, it may seem as if they are the spells cast by an enchanted cosmic sorcerer, but they, in fact, are formations of pure science. This science is based on the relationship between Earth and the Sun, as AccuWeather explains in a video.

Sun, the glowing star of hot gases, is the ruling source of light for Earth. But this light-raining source has a dark side too, notorious should be called it. In intervals between supplying light to Earth, the Sun gets in the mood for mischief. And when it does, it becomes restless and starts shaking its outermost boundary, hurling and blasting intense gales of hydrogen and helium atoms towards the Earth in something called “coronal mass ejection.”

As the ejected atoms try to enter our planet, Earth resists in an attempt to protect itself from the blazing solar flare. A battle erupts between Sun’s ejected atoms and Earth’s magnetic currents. And although most times, Earth succeeds in deflecting the atoms away, sometimes, the Sun’s energy is too overpowering that it succeeds in shattering the Earth’s magnetic shield and forcing itself into the atmosphere. Once probed into Earth’s atmosphere, the Sun’s energetic atoms start crashing into the nitrogen and oxygen atoms. And as the two parties tickle and bang into one another, the collision makes the previously neutral atmospheric particles “excited” with bursts of energy.

As these charged, energy-rumbling particles zip through the night skies, they paint it into a stunning dance performance of dazzling colors. The colors blow up based on the wavelength and intensity of the excited atmospheric particles. Excited oxygen atoms emit greens and blues while excited nitrogen atoms emit deep reds, blues, and purples. The clip of aurora shared by Roldan was likely recorded in Churchill, the heart of the Auroral Oval in Manitoba, because it is the top hotspot where people rush at midnight to chase this flamboyant sight.

The aurora footage, shot from the ground, reveals a cluster of trees overhead, appearing black in the night sky. The little pool of the sky left open within this bushy cluster unveils a pulsating dance of glowing colors, at first a dimly lit combo of wine red and green, and then an explosion of pure, glassy scattering of neon lime green. At about six seconds into the clip, the sky roars into a shrieking dance of this green color, resembling a jeweled lake that has turned into a dancing phantom.

With curtains of colored light pulsating and trembling, the dance of this phantom continues while the trees below quiver with the wafts of soft breeze. For about 43 seconds, the glittering dance show continues, and then the video wraps up. After watching this aurora’s outburst, the comments section saw an outburst of adjectives like “spectacular,” “maravilloso,” “magical,” “amazing,” and whatnot. Thanks to Sun’s momentary mischief, earthlings got a piece of magic to cherish.

You can watch the video here. 

You can follow RJ Roldan (@rjayroldan) on X for more beautiful posts about sightings in Manitoba.

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