For more context why this wouldn’t be related to redshift, redshift is a concept in physics for light that’s analogous to the Doppler shift for sound. The typical example of Doppler shift is the EEEEE-OO-UUUUUM sound a car makes when moving fast past you. When the car is speeding away from you, the sound pitch is noticeably lower
Similarly, when a light emitter moves away from you at extremely fast speeds (i.e. hundreds of millions of meters or yards per second), the light you see reaching you will be shifted down in frequency, towards red in visible light. This can happen in other more complicated relativistic situations too but they are less easy to explain and also not applicable here
I don’t know why the people in the photo see this beautiful red aurora but redshift is almost certainly not a related concept here
Yeah I would say that one could explain the picture here
Ultimately, the phenomenon is happening much much higher up in the atmosphere, so being a few kilometers closer vertically won’t make a difference; but by being further up on the ground, you could see an aurora from further away and through a lot more molecules that could scatter non-red light
If it is viewed from far and on a high altitude, would the light appear red shifted?
The answer is almost certainly no but I’m curious why you think this might be the case
That’s a cool photo, thanks for sharing.
For more context why this wouldn’t be related to redshift, redshift is a concept in physics for light that’s analogous to the Doppler shift for sound. The typical example of Doppler shift is the EEEEE-OO-UUUUUM sound a car makes when moving fast past you. When the car is speeding away from you, the sound pitch is noticeably lower
Similarly, when a light emitter moves away from you at extremely fast speeds (i.e. hundreds of millions of meters or yards per second), the light you see reaching you will be shifted down in frequency, towards red in visible light. This can happen in other more complicated relativistic situations too but they are less easy to explain and also not applicable here
I don’t know why the people in the photo see this beautiful red aurora but redshift is almost certainly not a related concept here
Oh I think I got things confused there. I was referring to the phenomenon where the sky looks red-pinkish on evenings because the Rayleigh scattering.
Yeah I would say that one could explain the picture here
Ultimately, the phenomenon is happening much much higher up in the atmosphere, so being a few kilometers closer vertically won’t make a difference; but by being further up on the ground, you could see an aurora from further away and through a lot more molecules that could scatter non-red light