Space storms light up Japan's sky with red auroras climbing far higher than expected

On a special night, if you are lucky, you might catch a faint red glow quietly lighting up Japan's sky, stretching low along the horizon and easy to miss if you are not looking carefully. Subtle and diffuse, it probably appears as a soft crimson haze. But behind this glowing beauty are countless charged particles traveling from the sun toward Earth's magnetic field, which then collide with oxygen atoms high above our planet. At these great heights, where the air is extremely thin, the excited oxygen atoms then release their energy as dim red light, creating the auroras we see from the ground.