from Hacker News

Northern Lights as seen from inside a U2 spy plane

by nerdy on 3/18/18, 4:28 AM with 10 comments

• by everdev on 3/18/18, 7:51 AM

  Beautiful shots.

  Surprised that these photos were allowed to be released from a recent military mission in a spy plane.

  It's hard to glean much insight into what the mission might have been, but I thought the military had to approve the release of content through a lengthy declassification process.

• by nerdy on 3/18/18, 6:19 AM

  It must be a surreal, spiritual experience to be there all alone at 70,000 feet.

• by DoingIsLearning on 3/18/18, 9:10 AM

  At what altitude is the storm, that generates these lights?

  Intuitively I would have thought that, if they are on the edge of the atmosphere, the lights would be lower than the plane, no?

• by xioxox on 3/18/18, 7:53 AM

  I wonder whether they got a big dose of radiation from being so high with all those high energy particles.