So, a guy in space took a picture. That is the news today. A Russian man named Sergey Kud-Sverchkov is floating around in a metal can way above our heads right now. He looked out the window. He saw some green lights. He snapped a photo. And now everyone down here is clapping like seals at a circus. "Oh, look at the pretty lights," you say. "It is so magical," you say. Give me a break.

Let’s talk about what is actually happening in this photo. The sun is basically exploding. It is angry. It threw a giant tantrum. Scientists call this a "solar storm." That sounds exciting, like a movie. But really, it just means the sun burped out a bunch of radiation and threw it right at Earth. This was the biggest solar tantrum in twenty years. If we did not have a magnetic bubble around our planet, we would all be crispy toast right now. But we do have the bubble. So instead of dying, we get green lights in the sky. And because we are simple creatures with simple brains, we stare at the pretty colors and forget that a giant ball of fire is trying to kill us.

Sergey is up there on the International Space Station. I want you to think about that for a second. He is stuck in a tube. It probably smells like old gym socks and recycled sweat up there. He has to drink water that used to be his own pee. That is the glamorous life of an astronaut. But he has one thing we don’t have. He has a window that looks down on the mess we made. From up there, he can’t see the traffic jams. He can’t see the overpriced coffee shops. He can’t see the politicians lying on TV. He just sees the glow. It must be nice. To be that far away from humanity must be the best vacation ever.

He posted the picture online. Of course he did. Even in space, you have to post for the likes. If you go to space and don’t put it on the internet, did you really go? The caption talks about how "stunning" the view is. Everyone loves that word. "Stunning." It means you are so shocked you can’t move. That is actually perfect. We are all stuck. We are frozen. We look at a picture on our little glass screens and we feel good for five seconds. Then we go back to our boring jobs and our loud neighbors.

The lights are called the aurora. It is just gas getting hit by solar wind. It is physics. It is violence on a molecular level. But to us, it looks like a screen saver. We love to romanticize things that are actually dangerous. "Look at the power of nature," we say from our air-conditioned living rooms. We are safe. We are comfortable. We have no idea how fragile we really are. If that solar storm was a little bit bigger, your internet would break. Your GPS would fail. You would get lost going to the grocery store. But hey, at least the sky would look pretty while civilization fell apart.

I find it funny that a Russian guy took the picture. Down here, countries are always fighting. Leaders are yelling. Borders are closed. People hate each other because they were born on different patches of dirt. But up there? Sergey just sees one big, glowing ball. The aurora covers everything. It does not care about your flag. It does not care about your economy. The sun hates everyone equally. I respect that. The sun is the ultimate cynic. It just blasts radiation at everyone and lets us sort it out.

So, go ahead. Look at the photo. Share it with your friends. Say "wow." Feel that little spark of wonder. It is fake, but it feels nice. Just remember that while you are looking up at the magic green lights, the world around you is still a mess. The rent is still high. The roads are still full of potholes. And people are still dumb. A pretty picture from space does not fix any of that. It just distracts you for a minute. And maybe that is the point. We are all just looking for a reason to ignore reality. Sergey gave us one. Thanks, Sergey. Now get back to work fixing the space toilet.

We really are like bugs. We see a bright light and we fly right toward it. We don't care if it zaps us. We just want to see the shine. This solar storm was huge. The biggest in two decades. That means the sun is waking up. It is getting active. Maybe it is tired of watching us, too. Maybe it wants to fry our satellites so we have to stop looking at our phones and actually talk to each other. That would be a true disaster. I would actually have to listen to people speak. I prefer the radiation. Keep the pictures coming, space man. It is better than dealing with the people down here.