PHOTOS: Stunning Auroras Explode With Color as Solar Substorm Lights up the Night Sky

A fisheye lens captures an aurora storm over Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Alberta, on Jan. 20, 2026. Courtesy of Chandresh Kedhambadi

There’s a buzz of excitement again in the aurora-hunting community in Calgary, in the Canadian Prairie province of Alberta. The fading climax of the current 13-year solar cycle, it appears, is now offering up an epic geomagnetic afterglow.

In the wake of the big solar storms and subsequent auroras in October 2024, several solar substorms bombarded Earth’s atmosphere last month. Night photographers noted some of the best northern lights they'd ever seen.