The Night the Sky Opened Over Tromsø

In January 2023, photographer Shang Yang traveled to Tromsø, Norway, hoping to capture the Northern Lights. He had seen photographs, watched documentaries, studied the science of solar particles colliding with atmospheric gases. He thought he understood what he would see. He was wrong. When the aurora erupted that night — curtains of green and violet rippling across the entire sky, horizon to horizon — Yang lowered his camera and wept.…