Astronaut Sees Purple Haze Aurora, Inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s Hit Song

2:05 AM ETDeveloping

Science Desk

In Short: NASA astronaut Jessica Meir captured a stunning aurora on the International Space Station, inspiring her to reflect on Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze'.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir recently photographed a vibrant aurora from the International Space Station, an event that inspired her to share a personal connection to Jimi Hendrix's iconic 1967 hit 'Purple Haze.' According to reports, one of Hendrix's inspirations for the song was the sci-fi novel 'Night of Light,' which imagines a distant planet in a binary star system.

The aurora Meir observed was the result of a high-speed stream of solar wind from a coronal hole and the lingering effects of multiple coronal mass ejections, as reported by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. While auroras can occur year-round, astronauts are particularly likely to witness them during the spring and fall equinoxes.

Meir posted on September 8, 'It makes me want to kiss the sky,' a nod to Hendrix's lyrics, and shared the photograph on social media. The aurora's ethereal purples, greens, and reds were a fitting tribute to Hendrix's vision, as the song's lyrics describe a surreal and transformative experience.

The aurora, also known as the Roman goddess of dawn, has been observed for centuries, with early European descriptions often likening it to a faint red glow in the northern sky, similar to the reddish glow of dawn in the east.

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Another Hendrix song, "Voodoo Chile," made the list of wake-up songs for STS-110, according to a report from NASA's History Division.
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Every seven years, the story goes, the stars bathe the planet in a bizarre purple radiance with the power to rearrange physical reality in profound and unexpected ways.
The atmosphere's purple glow, for instance, turned some people into trees and brought statues to life.
The photograph above is one of many that the astronauts took on September 7, 2026, as they orbited an atmosphere quivering with color.
Stacking several of the photos also yielded a long-exposure series in which the aurora’s green glow mingles with star trails, moonlight, passing satellites, and city lights in a dazzling jumble of illumination.
Its use in reference to the atmospheric phenomenon likely comes from Europeans living far from the Arctic Circle, who would have experienced the aurora as a faint red glow to the north, resembling the reddish glow in the east at dawn.

Sources

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