Northern lights simulator

About our aurora borealis simulator

The aurora borealis generator is a free visual tool that runs directly from your browser. It simulates the famous polar lights on your screen, with no installation or download required. Simply configure a few settings and click Start to launch the animation.

Choose the color of your aurora

The tool offers eleven color palettes divided into two distinct categories. The classic palettes include green, cyan, blue, purple, and multicolor for a realistic simulation. The rare palettes offer more unusual shades such as electric pink, golden amber, or arctic red.

Customize the background landscape

Four polar night scenes are available to enrich the visual simulation. You can choose between snowy mountains, a boreal forest, a snow plain, or a lit isolated cabin. Each scene automatically adapts to the color of the selected aurora palette.

Adjust the animation to your liking

Four sliders let you adjust the appearance and behavior of the luminous veils. The Speed slider controls how quickly the light ribbons ripple across the screen. The Intensity slider adjusts the overall brightness of the colors displayed on the canvas.

The Veils slider sets the number of light ribbons between one and eight. The Stars slider adjusts the density of the starry sky visible behind the animated aurora. The higher these values, the denser and more immersive the visual experience becomes.

Start, pause, and reset

A Start button launches the simulation from its initial configured state. The Pause button freezes the image at the exact moment you click it. The Reset button restarts the animation from the beginning using your currently selected settings.

View the animation in full screen

A small button in the top right corner of the canvas activates full-screen mode. The animation then fills your entire monitor for a fully immersive display. A second click on this button restores the normal in-page view.

What aurora color is most rare?

Red is widely considered the rarest aurora color visible to the naked eye in nature. It forms when solar particles interact with oxygen atoms at very high altitudes, above 200 kilometers. This reaction requires exceptionally intense solar activity, which makes red auroras an uncommon and striking sight.

How rare are pink auroras?

Pink auroras are extremely rare and typically last only a few minutes in the night sky. They appear when highly energetic solar particles penetrate below 100 kilometers and interact with nitrogen molecules. A veteran aurora guide in Tromsø, Norway, reported that intense pink auroras were the rarest colors he had ever witnessed after over 1,000 tours.

Pink auroras require a crack in Earth’s magnetosphere to allow solar wind to reach the lower atmospheric layers. They are most often observed during strong geomagnetic storms in high-latitude regions like Norway or Canada. Blue, purple, and pink are collectively considered the rarest aurora colors to observe with the naked eye.

Are auroras ever white?

Auroras can appear white to the human eye, although no single atmospheric element produces a true white emission. White occurs when multiple aurora colors, typically green, red, and blue, overlap simultaneously and blend together visually. A very bright aurora can also saturate the eye’s color receptors and appear pale white during intense displays.

White aurora sightings remain exceptionally rare and have surprised even experienced observers in the field. The phenomenon is also linked to STEVE, a specific atmospheric optical event producing a pale mauve-white spectrum. Most observers mistake faint white auroras for clouds or nearby light pollution.

What time of year are auroras best?

The best months to observe auroras are September, October, March, and early April due to the equinox effect. During the equinoxes, Earth’s magnetic field aligns more favorably with solar wind, boosting aurora activity for several weeks. November through February also offers longer and darker nights, which maximize viewing time in Arctic regions.

Auroras are visible from late August to mid-April and cannot be seen from May to July because nights are too short. The strongest displays typically occur between 9 pm and 2 am local time, with peak activity around midnight. Locations above 65° latitude, such as northern Norway, Iceland, and Finnish Lapland, offer the most reliable conditions throughout the season.