Magnetic substorms send wave after wave of aurora traveling away from the poles. We usually see green aurora. However, an intense storm can come alive with colour and beautiful reds, blues and purples billow above. Each kind of gas in our atmospheric glows with a specific color and the colour is also affected by the energy of the particle hitting the atmosphere's atoms and molecules. And each colour lives at a different altitude.
Oxygen atoms glow green at lower altitudes.
Hit an oxygen atom at the top of the aurora with more energy and the atom will glow red. Nitrogen glows with colours that range from a deep red through blue and ultraviolet. The purple-red nitrogen appears a lower altitude rippling along the lower edge of a display. The colours blend and ripple- the aurora show off to any sleepless observers. Observations Most of the RASCal observing gang were sensibly tucked snugly into their dreams on the morning of August 12th but a couple of guys felt they could try to catch a falling star and headed out to watch the Perseid meteor shower.