Wei Zhou

The aurora borealis is like a distant theater: the show may be on, but whether the audience sees it depends on the curtain. Here, the curtain is clouds and moonlight. Earlier forecasts tried to predict both the occurrence of auroras and viewing conditions at once, mixing everything together.

In a ballroom where couples were dancing, the music changed, and the pairs lined up in rows suddenly spun into whirlpools. That is how the magnetic crystal Fe3Ge rearranges its internal pattern once the temperature climbs above 375 kelvins, which is about a hundred degrees of heat.