Along with thousands of laypeople, astronomers around the Bay Area were amazed and awestruck by the rare sight of the aurora borealis so far south of the Arctic.
SAN JOSE -- It can be hard to put into words a sight like the northern lights .'I was just in awe,' said Xavier Mendoza. 'I just couldn't believe it.'Mendoza's experience seeing the rare celestial event from Mount Hamilton in San Jose struck him to the core. Studying it is one thing. Seeing it is another.'It just made my passion for astronomy become a little more solidified,' he said.Mendoza is a grad student at San Jose State University .
The red auroras are actually more rare than the green auroras, so that was really quite special for me to see such an intense red aurora,' he said. 'It's been about 20 years since there has been such a good one. That allows the charged particles from the sun to get to lower latitudes like Northern California, exciting the various atoms in the atmosphere and causing them to glow.
San Jose State University Northern Lights
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