While flying from Seattle to Fairbanks, Alaska, photographer Moharnab Saikia witnessed a spectacle he will “never forget.”
On April 12, Newsweek reported that around 2:30 AM local time, while other passengers were sleeping, Moharnab Saikia was gazing out the airplane window and caught a breathtaking display of the aurora borealis.
“I had heard about the aurora forecast, but I knew it could change, as I had tried many times to catch the aurora in Washington without success,” Moharnab Saikia said.
According to Saikia, after two hours of flying, he saw what he was looking for. “At first, the light was quite faint, and I thought it was just light from the atmosphere. But I decided to pull out my camera and take a long exposure shot and saw a faint blue color. I was very excited.
“After a while, the aurora became so strong that I could see green waves dancing across the sky. At its peak, almost the entire sky was filled with the aurora’s light,” Saikia expressed.
Stunning aurora captured by Moharnab Saikia.
Saikia shared: “I took many photos… for as long as I could before my hands started to go numb.”
“I was speechless, both amazed and anxious because I knew this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience and photograph it. I called my friend sitting next to me while she was sleeping to share this wonderful phenomenon,” Saikia recounted.
In astronomy, the aurora is an optical phenomenon characterized by a colorful display of light in the night sky, produced by the interaction of charged particles from the solar wind with the Earth’s upper atmosphere. These bands of light continuously move and change, making them resemble colorful silk ribbons in the sky.
The aurora occurring in the northern hemisphere is called the aurora borealis, while in the southern hemisphere, it is referred to as the aurora australis. This can be considered one of nature’s most beautiful images.
