The Global Light Show

摘要

Shortly before daybreak in Boulder, Colorado, computer screens, CRT monitors, and a solar X-ray imager suddenly hum to life at the Space Environment Center. Inside NASA's Space Radiation Analysis Group in Houston, Texas, Mission Control is placed on heightened alert. Electrical grids at the New York Power Authority begin to strain.Chris Atkins of Farmington, New York, stops his car as four-year-old daughter Bethany points out the windshield and asks, "Daddy, why is there fire in the sky?" Above the car, flame-shaped curtains of red light wriggle supernaturally across the sky. Magnificent. Saintly. Hypnotic.