A night under the lights

The sun was pretty active on Sunday. Really active.

A huge flare was hurled into the void, right at us. And on Tuesday, it hit the good planet Earth. The result of the class M9 flare was a display of awesome power and light in the air above both poles, as seen from reports from places and cities that normally don't ever see such.

Now, I could go into the science behind it, explain about how we detected the huge flare and the resulting coronal mass ejection, or CME, from space. I could explain all about what a storm - and that is what this was in reality - could do to us here on the Earth, what it can do to our communications, satellites, power grids and even aircraft in flight. But that would take away from the wonder of it all and, frankly, be a little on the dry side. Don't get me wrong. I am a science nut. I have many sites loaded in my computer to track events like this.

But this story isn't about the science at all. It is about stepping away from the computer, away from the textbooks. It is about going outside into the frigid cold of the sub-zero night to get out and look up into the wonder of it all unfolding before my eyes.

Tuesday night found me in my room watching old science fiction movies. As the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" played on my DVD, I prepped for the night's outing. My trusty Army field jacket with its liner lay on my bed where I'd tossed it. GI-issue arctic gloves and GI wool shirt lay next to it, a wool cap and scarf on top of it all. I sat next to them clad in a long-sleeved pullover, jeans with my best thermal underwear underneath and thermal socks. My snow boots sat on the floor, waiting for me to stuff my feet into when the time came. It was 11 degrees below zero with clear skies full of stars.

Since Sunday, the news networks and Internet have been buzzing with the sun's blast into the void of space. Photos from places like Norway and Iceland showed spectacular shots of the biggest solar flare in years as it came down to us in the form of northern lights, or auroras. Alaska's turn was coming that night and I was ready for it.

The rest of the family had retired to bed and I sat in my room like a boy on his first day of school, nervous and excited at the same time. For once, the weather was going to cooperate. I wasn't going to miss this for the world. I checked the view from the windows in the darkened sunroom every half hour until 11:30 p.m., when I saw the first glimmers of green. I ran back into my room and piled on my gear.

Outside the first thing that struck me was the bitter cold air. It burned my nose and froze any bit of exposed flesh in seconds. Passing our cars I noticed the rabbits weren't bothered by the cold or the over-dressed human walking toward them. The snow crunched under my feet, scattering the rabbits as I passed. I needed to get past the front house light and to a dark patch that looked to the north. Once there, I looked up into the wonder of creation.

The Talkeetna Mountains were a dark silhouette as a green amorphous cloud-like light rose above them. It moved and flowed like a living thing. There was little sound except that of a dog barking in the distance. The crisp air smelled of wood smoke as I flipped my scarf over my face to protect the exposed portions of skin.

The green glow moved. It flowed. It faded and then flared into something larger with dark streamers laced within it. The trail was next to my house and I walked away from the streetlights into a darker patch of night. The view was much better. The deep cold was forgotten as the spell of the wonder took me. Each time I was lucky enough to see this event was different. This one seemed to fill the sky from end to end with a living green glow painted by the brush of the Creator himself. It would flow into ribbons and then reshape itself to form a huge flowing band of livid green, only to fade away and return in seconds to make new shapes and flowing forms. I was spellbound.

The cold won after 30 minutes of standing there in the dark. It seeped into the deepest layers and began to numb all it touched with its deep, cold fingers. I had to go back in. With each step back I kept my eyes on the aurora as it ignored the tiny human below and continued its light show. I opened my side door and stepped into the warmth, turned on the TV and peeled off the layers to warm up.

I would go out two more times until the temperature would fall below minus 16. That was the limit for me. During my last jaunt outside the lights stunned me. There was one band that actually pulsed. It flickered like a bad neon sign and then flared to a surreal brightness, then fade and repeat the process again and again. I have never seen the northern lights do that.

I would spend the rest of the night peeking out the windows with the house lights turned off between periods of shuteye. The light show was that big. By the time the rest of the family woke up for the morning, I found myself exhausted but thrilled to be lucky to see such wonders as I told them about what I had been witness to. I went to bed this time for a good while to make up for that nights fun in the frigid Alaska cold.

It left me with one burning question: could someone please tell me how to work the stupid digital camera I have so I can take pictures of this stuff?

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.