From left to right: Photo by Emily Tarinelli ’25, submitted graphic by Audrey Hanan ’28, photo by Isabel Dunn ’27.
By Emily Tarinelli ’25
Managing Editor of Content
It was just another mid-semester night for Mount Holyoke College students on Thursday, Oct. 10: midterms looming, papers piling up and students craving fall break.
Morgan Trudeau ’27 and Emily Steadman ’26 were walking out of the Blanchard Dining Commons when they noticed everyone around them sprinting towards Skinner Green.
“We ran to the edge of Blanch and looked up, and we were like, holy crap. The sky is red,” Steadman said.
It was the aurora borealis — commonly known as the northern lights — illuminating the skies above campus. Students reported seeing green and light pink streaks within a mostly red display around 7:30 p.m. The lights could be seen all across Western Massachusetts, the United States and the world: as far west as California, as far north as Canada, as far south as Florida and in several European countries.
The enchanting natural light show was the result of a strong geomagnetic storm in Earth’s atmosphere, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Storms like this occur when solar material from the sun erupts in events called solar flares, sending charged protons and electrons barreling towards Earth as fast as 1,300 kilometers per second, or 2.9 million miles per hour.
Upon entering Earth’s atmosphere, the charged particles interact with oxygen and nitrogen molecules, creating the stunning curtains of color in the sky, as Meteorologist Liam Murphy stated in a Western Mass News report. Red auroras emerge when the solar particles collide with oxygen above 200 km; blue ones emerge when they collide with nitrogen between 100 and 200 km high; green when they collide with oxygen between 100 and 200 km high; and pink when they hit nitrogen below 100 km.
NOAA stated that the solar flares causing Oct. 10’s light display happened on the evening of Tuesday, Oct. 8, and took two days to travel the 93 million miles between the sun and Earth. The auroras are most frequently seen at the North and South Poles, where Earth’s magnetic field is weakest, according to Murphy’s report. However, when the geomagnetic storms are powerful enough, the auroras can be visible further south.
Upon seeing the northern lights above Mount Holyoke, students flocked to the darkest areas of campus, including Skinner Green, many of them hopping the rope barring it from foot traffic. The quad has been roped off since the beginning of the semester due to the cultivation of new grass following work related to the College’s geothermal project.
For Liv Lee ’28, observing the northern lights from Skinner Green was special. “I’m a first-year, so I’ve never really experienced Skinner Green or the hype of it. I think it’s really cute that this is the first time the student body as a whole is back on Skinner Green after the geothermal project, looking at the northern lights,” she said. She added that it was “so wholesome” that so many students from all over the world got to see the northern lights for the first time on campus, herself included.
Trudeau and Steadman said that they both live about an hour away from campus and that the lights were forecasted to be visible from their homes a couple times this summer, but weren’t, either due to too many clouds or too much light pollution. After so many unsuccessful attempts, Steadman said seeing the lights on campus was “crazy,” especially with “how bright and colorful the sky got.”
Trudeau said that seeing everyone awestruck by the sky together was just as cool as seeing the northern lights. “The sky was beautiful,” Trudeau said. “And then everyone came outside, which was beautiful.”
Sela Sangwin ’28 was also touched by how the community came together in light of the auroras’ appearance. Before she realized the northern lights were visible, she had been in the Dining Commons where she saw people running around, showing photos of the lights and excitedly shouting for people to go outside and see.
“Everyone is so happy, and they’re so willing to make sure that everyone is included,” Sangwin said. Citing the students corralling others in the Dining Commons, she said, “They’re not outside. They’re running around in the dining hall trying to get everyone else outside, which I really appreciated.” She said it spoke to the student body’s school spirit, “even in all sorts of occasions.”
“I just feel really lucky that I live in a world where this sort of thing can happen,” Sangwin said. “I’m feeling so grateful to be here, to be under the northern lights. It’s just the best place to be at this moment.”
Sofia Ramon ’27 contributed fact-checking.