Photographer captures northern lights on flight to Alaska during strongest geomagnetic storm in recent years: "Sky-high magic"

The skies were set ablaze in colorful lights late last month when the strongest geomagnetic storm in recent years unleashed far-reaching and intense northern lights. And one man got to see it up close and personal. 

Moharnab Saikia was flying from Seattle, Washington, to Fairbanks, Alaska, on March 24 when the sky lit up outside his window. He posted a video of the lights on his photography Instagram account, calling it "sky-high magic." 

He told Newsweek that he saw the lights about two hours into his flight. He initially thought he was just seeing airglow, but then he decided to take a long exposure photo and before he knew it, he "saw a faint green color." 

"After some time, the aurora was so strong that I could see the waves dancing in green all over the sky," he said. "Almost the whole sky was filled at its peak."

Saikia took as many photos as he could before his "hand would start going numb," he said, and then used those images to create a timelapse. And those results were nothing short of spectacular – with bright green lights seen shimmering in the night sky just behind the plane's wing. 

He later shared that footage to Reddit and said the experience left him "mesmerized and nervous as heck," Newsweek reported. 

"This was one of the strongest [geomagnetic storms] in years," he said. 

The March 24 event marked the strongest geomagnetic storm to hit the planet in nearly six years, according to Space.com, becoming so intense that the auroras were visible as far as New Mexico. One of the last storms to reach a G4 "severe" level  occurred in September 2017, according to NOAA. 

Scientists first warned of a potential storm a few days prior when they observed a coronal hole high speed stream and a coronal mass ejection. But at that time, they were just expecting the storm to hit a "moderate" G2 level on NOAA's 1-5 scale. Shortly after midnight on March 24, however, the storm hit G4 – a level that can cause "widespread voltage control problems," orientation problems for spacecraft operations and navigation issues. G4 storms have been known to make the auroras visible as far south as Alabama. 

When Saikia spoke to Newsweek, he said it was an "amazing phenomenon." 

"I was very excited," he said. "I was speechless, astonished and anxious too as I knew this was maybe once in a lifetime opportunity for me to experience and photograph it." 

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• Aurora Borealis
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• Alaska
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