{"id":626124,"date":"2026-09-16T05:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T05:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626124\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T05:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T05:58:10","slug":"purple-haze-aurora-nasa-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/626124\/","title":{"rendered":"Purple Haze Aurora – NASA Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the inspirations for Jimi Hendrix’s iconic 1967 hit “Purple Haze<\/a>” is said to be the sci-fi novel<\/a> Night of Light, about a distant planet in a binary star system. Every seven years, the story goes, the stars bathe the planet in a bizarre purple radiance with the power to rearrange physical reality in profound and unexpected ways. The atmosphere’s purple glow, for instance, turned some people into trees and brought statues to life.<\/p>\n

It’s perhaps fitting, then, for an astronaut on the International Space Station<\/a> to invoke the iconic song after witnessing the aurora<\/a> illuminate Earth’s atmosphere with ethereal greens, reds, and purples. Hendrix would have “rejoiced” at the “brilliant purple,” NASA astronaut Jessica Meir posted on September 8<\/a>. It “makes me want to kiss the sky,” she added in a nod to the lyrics<\/a> of the Hendrix song.<\/p>\n

The photograph above is one of many that the astronauts took on September 7, 2026, as they orbited an atmosphere quivering with color. The station was at an altitude of 255 miles (411 kilometers) and above Kyrgyzstan when the photo was taken. Stacking several of the photos also yielded a long-exposure series<\/a> in which the aurora\u2019s green glow mingles with star trails, moonlight<\/a>, passing satellites, and city lights in a dazzling jumble of illumination.<\/p>\n

Aurora is the Latin word for “dawn”<\/a> and also the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn. Its use in reference to the atmospheric phenomenon likely comes from Europeans living far from the Arctic Circle, who would have experienced the aurora as a faint red glow to the north, resembling the reddish glow in the east at dawn.<\/p>\n

The colorful phenomenon typically starts when the Sun sends charged particles toward Earth through solar flares, coronal mass ejections<\/a> (CMEs), or an active solar wind. These particles interact with the magnetosphere<\/a>\u2014the invisible, comet-shaped bubble of magnetic field lines surrounding the planet\u2014compressing and changing the configuration of the magnetic field. In the process, some particles within the field are drawn into Earth\u2019s upper atmosphere, where they excite nitrogen and oxygen atoms and molecules, causing them to release photons.<\/p>\n

The aurora Meir photographed occurred amid a disturbance associated with a high-speed stream<\/a> of solar wind from a coronal hole<\/a> and the lingering effects of multiple coronal mass ejections, according to updates<\/a> from NOAA\u2019s Space Weather Prediction Center<\/a>. These solar wind disturbances interacted with Earth\u2019s magnetosphere, causing minor (G1) geomagnetic storms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The colors of auroras are influenced by the type of gas involved and the altitude at which they occur in the atmosphere. Oxygen excited to different energy levels can produce green and red. Green occurs roughly between 60 and 120 miles (100 and 200 kilometers) altitude, and red occurs above 120 miles (200 kilometers). Excited nitrogen gas, from about 60 to 120 miles (100 to 200 kilometers), glows blue or pink depending on the type and energy of the particles it interacts with. Sometimes, the light emitted by gases can appear to mix, making the auroras seem purple, pink, or even white.<\/p>\n

While auroras can occur any time of the year, astronauts are especially likely to enjoy the light shows in the spring and fall, around the equinoxes<\/a>. That’s because the geometry of Earth’s magnetic field relative to the solar wind makes it especially favorable for transferring solar-wind energy into the magnetosphere, a phenomenon known as the Russell-McPherron effect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the only example of Jimi Hendrix’s music making an impression beyond Earth. A selection of Hendrix’s music touched down<\/a> on the Moon in 2024 with the Odysseus lander<\/a>. Another Hendrix song, “Voodoo Chile,” made the list of wake-up songs<\/a> for STS-110, according to a report<\/a> from NASA’s History Division.<\/p>\n

Astronaut photograph <\/a>ISS075-E-88592<\/a>\u00a0was acquired on September 7, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 15 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the\u00a0Expedition 75 crew<\/a>. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The\u00a0International Space Station Program<\/a>\u00a0supports the laboratory as part of the\u00a0ISS National Lab<\/a>\u00a0to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA\/JSC\u00a0Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth<\/a>. Story by Adam Voiland.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Green\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Far Out (2021, September 15) The book that inspired Jimi Hendrix\u2019s psychedelic masterpiece \u2018Purple Haze.\u2019<\/a> Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

ISS in Real Time (2026, September 7) A real-time journey onboard the International Space Station<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Meir, J., via X (2026, September 8) Purple Haze. Jimi Hendrix would have rejoiced at the site of the northern lights last night<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

NASA (2026, July 20) Chronology of wakeup calls<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

NASA Science (2025) Aurora<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

NASA Space Place (2026) Aurora<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

NOAA (2026, September) Forecast discussions<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

NOAA (2026, September 15) Current Space Weather Conditions: Alerts, Watches, and Warnings<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Open Culture (2020, October 12) How Science Fiction Formed Jimi Hendrix<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Russell, C.T. & McPherron, R.L. (1973) Semiannual variation of geomagnetic activit<\/a>y. Journal of Geophysical Research, 78(1), 92-108.<\/p>\n

Spaceweather.com (2026, September 8) Here’s proof that autumn is approaching<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

UCR (2024, February 28) An unheard Jimi Hendrix song now lives on the Moon<\/a>. Accessed September 15, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the inspirations for Jimi Hendrix’s iconic 1967 hit “Purple Haze” is said to be the sci-fi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[91628,61,60,82,247,114457],"class_list":["post-626124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-earth-observatory","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space","tag-sun-earth-interactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}