TEMPLE, Texas — If you thought you were seeing things Wednesday night, you weren’t alone. The Northern Lights made a rare appearance across much of Texas — painting the night sky in shades of green and magenta.

It’s a sight usually reserved for places like Alaska or Canada, but Central Texans were looking north in disbelief as the aurora lit up the sky.

“Typically, only once or twice every 10 years or so you can see the aurora in Texas,” said Dr. Trey Cade, Director of the Institute for Aviation Sciences at Baylor University. “So it’s pretty rare. It’s not unheard of — but it doesn’t happen often.”

The Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, occur when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth’s atmosphere. Those particles — traveling millions of miles an hour — strike oxygen a

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