Everything on our planet is interconnected, and these spectacular photographs of Antarctica in the middle of “night” prove it.

At this time of year the few inhabitants of the Antarctica, at the South Pole, should live in eternal night. But today the skies are orange, and the reflection in the ice and snow make Antarctica looks pink.

“In midwinter, Antarctica is almost always in the dark, except for a slight twilight around midday that makes the horizon faintly visible in good conditions.explains scientist Stuart Shaw, author of the photographswho currently works at New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica.

But a phenomenon it only occurs once every thousand years, and that it has happened 7,000 km away, has turned the skies and snow of Antarctica into a sight to behold. The photos you see here are unretouched:

“This year we were presented with quite a spectacle, with most of the station staff grabbing their jackets and running out with their cameras to see the stunning colours. Believe it or not, I have not edited these photos either, they are more or less as we saw them. Is incredible“.

What has happened to turn Antarctica pink? A phenomenon that only repeats itself once every thousand years, which took place 6 months ago, 7,000 km away: the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano.

This volcano located in the Tonga Archipelago, literally suddenly exploded on January 15, creating a fungus of hundreds of kilometers, and an explosion heard 9,000 kilometers away in Alaska. It also generated a tsunami that shook China, the United States and South America, causing 2 deaths in Peru, thousands of kilometers away. Around the volcano, 400,000 lightning bolts were generated.

Scientists believe that such an explosion has not occurred on Earth for at least 1,000 years. And its effects, seven months later, are still visible.

These orange skies of Antarctica, and their pink reflectionsare the product of aerosols released by the volcano into the stratosphere. These aerosols have been moving across the Earth, generating similar effects in New Zealand. And now they have reached Antarctica.

These aerosols distort the light, producing these light and color effects. that had never been seen in one of the most isolated places on the planet.

A phenomenon that shows us how we are all connected to each other when we talk about natural phenomena and their effects. And almost always, much more than we imagine.