#lightpillars

🇷🇺 Light Pillars in Kamensk-Uralsky

☀️ On February 21, 2026, a rare atmospheric phenomenon — light pillars — was observed in Kamensk-Uralsky (Sverdlovsk Region, Russia).

Sumber foto: Михаил Рева on Flickr

Ketika memasuki musim dingin, khususnya di daerah-daerah dekat kutub seperti Finlandia, Kanada, dan Rusia, akan terjadi suatu fenomena alam yang sangat indah di langit malam. Fenomena alam ini dinamakan Pilar Cahaya atau light pillar. Pilar cahaya adalah fenomena optik yang terjadi di lapisan atmosfer bumi yang menunjukkan cahaya yang memanjang ke atas atau ke bawah dan membentuk sebuah tiang di sumber cahaya. Fenomena pilar cahaya ini hanya dapat muncul di daerah yang bersuhu di bawah 10 derajat celcius, sehingga tidak mungkin terjadi di Indonesia yang dilewati garis Khatulistiwa.

Kemunculan fenomena ini disebabkan oleh pantulan cahaya dari kristal-kristal es kecil yang bergantungan di atmosfer atau di awan pada ketinggian tertentu, seperti awan cirrostratus yang berada di ketinggian 6.000 meter dari permukaan laut dan awan cirrus yang terletak di ketinggian 9.000 meter diatas permukaan laut. Oleh karena itu, fenomena ini tergolong dalam keluarga fenomena Halo, yaitu klasifikasi untuk fenomena-fenomena optik yang terjadi akibat interaksi cahaya dengan kristal es. Kemudian, sumber cahaya yang membentuk pilar ini dapat berupa cahaya Bulan untuk pilar cahaya alami, atau lampu jalan untuk pilar cahaya buatan.

Pilar cahaya terjadi dengan beragam tinggi, kejelasan dan kenampakan, serta warna. Tinggi dari pilar cahaya tergantung pada bentuk kristal es yang memantulkan cahayanya. Biasanya, kristal-kristal es yang bertanggung jawab atas pilar-pilar cahaya yang tinggi berbentuk heksagonal rata. Setiap kristal memantulkan cahaya tepat ke bawahnya dan semakin banyak kristal es yang memantulkan cahaya, semakin jelas dan nampak pilar cahaya yang dihasilkan. Sedangkan warna pilar cahaya beragam tergantung dari sumber cahayanya, pilar cahaya yang berasal dari pantulan cahaya bulan biasanya berwarna putih atau kuning.

Terkadang orang-orang mengira bahwa pilar cahaya ini adalah fenomena alam lain yang cukup mirip, yaitu Aurora. Jika dilihat secara sekilas memang terlihat sama, tetapi kedua fenomena ini memiliki beberapa perbedaan yang mencolok. Aurora adalah fenomena yang benar-benar alami sedangkan pilar cahaya dapat dibuat oleh manusia dengan mudah. Selain itu, pilar cahaya hanyalah pantulan cahaya dan tidak mengganggu gelombang elektromagnetik di atmosfer seperti aurora.

Pilar cahaya alami dari pantulan cahaya bulan paling sering terjadi di wilayah Finlandia yang menampilkan tiang-tiang cahaya yang terang dan indah. Tak hanya pilar cahaya alami yang indah, pilar cahaya buatan juga terlihat sangat indah. Salah satu peristiwa pilar cahaya buatan yang paling indah terjadi di New York City, Amerika Serikat setiap tahun sejak 2002 pada tanggal 11 September untuk mengenang peristiwa 9/11. Peristiwa ini dinamakan "Tribute in Light" dan diperlihatkan di kawasan bekas reruntuhan gedung kembar World Trace Center.

Every 12,000 years, global catastrophes occur on Earth. The conclusion about the presence of such a cycle was made on the basis of a large-scale interdisciplinary study of traces of catastrophes based on ice cores, bottom sediments, traces of floods, ash layers of eruptions, megafires, paleomagnetic events, tectonic reconstructions, archaeological materials, and much more. It is important to understand that these cyclic catastrophes on geological time scales occur almost instantly. In the last cycle of catastrophes between the sharp warming and the subsequent cooling of the Younger Dryas, in just a few decades, a planetary catastrophe occurred, leading the planet to the Great Flood. Due to the suddenness of these climatic events, non-specialists and journalists interpreted it as the result of a meteorite impact, that is, it happened so abruptly and unexpectedly, however, those who comprehensively studied the events of the Later Dryas are sure that a sharp warming and subsequent cooling occurred precisely because of volcanic eruptions. In addition, at the same time, a drift of the poles was taking place on the planet, which could in no way be connected with the fall of the meteorite. Catastrophic volcanic eruptions and sudden changes in the magnetic field have something in common, and one reason - this is the destabilization of the core of our planet by external cosmic influence, which affects the planets of the entire solar system once every 12 thousand years. In every 12,000-year cycle of catastrophes, the Earth's magnetic poles drift, which we still observe today. The pole shift 12 thousand years ago is called Gothenburg excursion, 24 thousand years ago - Lake Mungo, 36 thousand years ago - Mono Lake, 48 thousand years ago - Laschamp and so on. Also in past cycles, there was a weakening of the magnetic field. For example, according to paleomagnetic studies during the Laschamp event, the planet's magnetosphere shrank by about 3.8 times the Earth's radius. One hypothesis claims that the extinction of the Neanderthals was due to an increased flux of ultraviolet radiation, as a weakened magnetic field began to pass it more. According to the models of scientists at the same time, auroras were observed on Earth even in the equatorial zone. Today, the change in the Earth's magnetic field is already gaining momentum. It may seem to us that this is not such an important parameter, since we do not directly feel these changes, but in fact this is a catastrophic phenomenon that threatens all life on the planet. Let's look at what anomalies on the planet lead to changes in the Earth's magnetic field in the current cycle of 12 thousand years . In 1995, as a result of changes in the core of our planet, the North Magnetic Pole, previously moving at a speed of 15 kilometers per year, sharply accelerated by 3.5 times. This is the result of heating the outer core and accelerating the flow of molten iron inside it. Today, due to the weakening of the magnetic field, the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly is growing. Scientists tell us that over the past century, the intensity of the Earth's magnetic field has decreased by more than 10%, which means that we are threatened by a more powerful stream of cosmic radiation, such as ultraviolet radiation, and this also means that the stream of external cosmic influence is even greater. volume passes to the nucleus. There is another possibly unexpected indicator of changes in the Earth's magnetic field, indicating a destabilization of the core - these are atypical auroras. This year there were especially many anomalously bright and frequent auroras, including in atypical points of the planet. People posted a lot of photos and videos on social networks, admiring this phenomenon, but unfortunately there is nothing to admire here. 

What is aurora?

Aurora is the interaction of solar wind particles with the Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere. In simple terms, when particles of the solar wind interact with particles of oxygen and nitrogen, this causes them to glow, which we observe as aurora. Depending on how deep charged particles can penetrate into the atmosphere and what their energy is, there will be a glow of different colors.

Each height has its own color, which is determined by the composition and density of the atmosphere. On Earth, we are used to seeing green aurorae, and mostly at the poles.

Green aurora occurs at altitudes from 100 to 200 kilometers above the earth when charged particles of the solar wind of medium energies interact with atomic oxygen. However, the glow can also be red, and it arises due to the interaction of high-energy solar wind particles with atomic oxygen. Such a poisonous red glow usually occurred at an altitude of over 200 km, since such high-energy particles were not transmitted below by the Earth's magnetic field.

Red auroras have occurred rarely and only during intense magnetic storms, so now we are seeing a very alarming anomaly. Not only did the auroras begin to occur very often, their manifestations are already observed at an altitude already below 90 kilometers, which means that, firstly, the Earth's magnetic field is weakening and those active high-energy particles of the solar wind that should have been reflected by the magnetic shield are freely penetrate deep into the atmosphere and begin to interact with atomic oxygen closer to the Earth. It is important to note this penetration of larger and more strongly charged particles, which act more destructively on all life on the planet, and the fact that today red auroras occur already in the lower layers of the atmosphere means that there is no longer any protection above. The second reason auroras behave anomalously is the lowering of the upper and middle layers of the atmosphere. Our atmosphere settles, that is, sinks, and the density of its upper and middle layers decreases. Moreover, its chemical composition changes. Now, according to satellite data, a decrease in oxygen concentration by 2-4 times at an altitude of 130 km has been revealed, and the loss rate significantly exceeds all calculated models, and this indicates a certain pathological process leading to a decrease in oxygen in the atmosphere. Scientists are also recording ozone depletion from the solar wind at 75 km, and we will soon see the ozone layer being destroyed already in the stratosphere below 50 km, which means that we will lose our protection from ultraviolet radiation. We already see examples of red auroras in mid-latitudes, especially in February and March 2023. And on January 5, 2023, the sky over Germany was painted red. It was an example of an anomalous static red aurora, but in addition to such red auroras, auroras of blue, turquoise, white and even pink hues have also begun to be observed, which also indicate the penetration of the solar wind closer to the Earth's surface and cracks in the magnetic field. https://twitter.com/bbroastro/status/1650285754562519044 During solar flares, the auroras move closer and closer to the equator. So, for example, during a strong magnetic storm on March 24, 2023, which scientists could not predict in advance and did not expect its arrival, the northern lights were observed in the United States and even in southern states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Arizona. Auroras began to reach the southern latitudes of Europe, for example, to the Czech Republic, Ukraine and southern Russia. The occurrence of atypical, bright and frequent auroras, which are now observed far from the polar regions, cannot be explained by the activity of the Sun, since the Sun is now in a protracted minimum of its activity, and a smaller number of solar wind particles come to Earth. The only explanation for the aurora anomaly is that the Earth's magnetic field is critically weakening, the atmosphere is settling and the solar wind is sinking lower and lower to the Earth's surface. This is actually scary, because such large disturbances in the magnetic field are a sign that the core of the Earth is no longer working as it should. Few people know that there is another anomaly that indicates a local manifestation of the atypical behavior of the Earth's magnetic field. The so-called light pillars are a phenomenon that has become more frequent in the last few years. Previously, similar phenomena were observed only during the aurora, but now they began to occur without it. Now light pillars are observed mainly in the cold regions of the Earth at night, when there is light from lanterns. You can read that such phenomena occur due to the fact that hexagonal or columnar ice crystals hang one above the other in the air, and they illuminate the atmosphere, but remember winter night photographs 10-20 years ago, when there were lanterns, and light there were no pillars. What now began to keep them in limbo? In fact, this is not just an optical effect. Now we are finding more and more cases where light pillars appear in a group. Often they are brightly colored in the color of the lanterns that illuminate them, however, the intensity of the glow of the pillar does not match the brightness of the lantern, and moreover, another anomaly occurs - light pillars with a red tint or red color appear regardless of the light source. 

So what are the light pillars?