An aurora will light up in unusual places as solar storm rages | Mashable.
An aurora will light up in unusual places as solar storm rages
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| A slew of coronal mass ejections from the sun during a solar storm made an aurora visible in many parts of the world that don't normally see one, including Southern Indiana, on May 10, 2024. Credit: Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images |
More kaleidoscopic light shows could be visible in the sky across the Northern Hemisphere as a powerful solar storm ramps up.
An extreme geomagnetic storm that first hit last week is expected to become more intense, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as several coronal mass ejections are due to bombard Earth's outer atmosphere in space later on May 12.
That means many people who haven't witnessed a rare aurora borealis may still have a chance to see it. People throughout the United States, United Kingdom, and other locations worldwide reported sightings Saturday of the Northern Lights, usually only visible at night near the North Pole. However, a similar effect happens near Antarctica, too.
The sun had a strong solar flare — a gigantic burst of energy — at 12:26 p.m. ET Sunday. This flare was classified as an X-1.0, among the most intense flares observed. Experts warned the incident could create temporary problems or lost signals for users of high-frequency radio communication.
"Solar flares send tons of energy whizzing through space at the speed of light," according to NASA. "Sometimes flares come with huge solar eruptions. These eruptions are called coronal mass ejections."
An aurora's display of colors is the result of electrons shot out of the sun during solar storms. As the charged particles reach Earth, they travel along the planet's invisible magnetic field lines into the atmosphere, interacting with the air. When those particles strike gasses, they heat up and glow, according to NASA.
The colors differ depending on the type of atmospheric gas and its altitude. Oxygen glows red or blue, while nitrogen can create green, blue, or pink. The recent strong solar storm conditions are causing the aurora around the north pole to be much more widespread, allowing people who live farther south to see them.
Similar to storm seasons on Earth, the sun experiences a weather pattern that repeats every 11 years. At the beginning and end of the cycle, that activity is at its calmest. But solar activity increases, climaxing in the middle of the cycle and causing the sun to roil with giant eruptions.
Right now that cycle is about to peak, close to reaching its maximum point in mid-2025. That's why reports of solar flares and coronal mass ejections — plasma spewed from the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona — are more abundant in the news.
Coronal mass ejections like the ones approaching Earth, or CMEs, are referred to as "space weather." Though the sun is about 93 million miles away, space weather can affect Earth and other parts of the solar system.
Scientists have a limited ability to forecast space weather. Here, the atmosphere and magnetic field shield people against the most harmful health impacts of solar radiation. However, these events can have catastrophic consequences on technology, disrupting power grids, telecommunications, and GPS systems.
Though these incidents don’t happen often, a solar flare in March 1989, for example, caused all of Quebec, Canada, to experience a 12-hour power outage. It also jammed radio signals for Radio Free Europe.
Prior to Sunday's flare, the sun ejected two other strong solar flares just before 9:30 p.m. ET Friday and 8 a.m. ET Saturday, according to NASA. The U.S. space agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, has snapped pictures of these events as well. The previous two flares were classified as X-5.8 and X-1.5, respectively.
NOAA, which is continuing to monitor the storm for the U.S. government, said these flares seem to be linked to a sunspot estimated to be perhaps 15 times wider than Earth.
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An interesting foot note. An X5.8 flare occurred after the initial aurora event the other night and it has gone completely ignored. Where as the several M class flares that supposedly caused the aurora were a super huge deal? Questioning the narrative..... as usual.
ReplyDeleteProject Blue Beam? They don't look real to me at all.
ReplyDelete"Project Blue Beam" 🤣😂🤦♀️
DeleteNow I’m hearing HAARP was behind all of it
ReplyDeleteYou do know this was created by HAARP.
ReplyDeletehttps://tenor.com/view/arnaque-fraud-alert-warning-gif-15267429
As frightening as it is, it's also beautiful to see.
ReplyDeleteMike Gill. Exposing it all.
ReplyDeletehttps://rumble.com/v4uurlz-guest-mike-gill-the-michelle-moore-show-may-13-2024.html
I call bullshit on this- it's man made
ReplyDeleteTwo incredible celestial events in less than a month -- events that most people will never see one of in their entire life. How incredibly fortunate we are!
ReplyDeleteParts of Canada that don't usually experience the northern lights scored big last night - if there wasn't cloud cover. This included southwestern Ontario. Here in Edmonton, AB, we had quite the show, even with light pollution. In rural areas, the pink tones were spectacular. Most people were still up because the Oilers won in overtime!
ReplyDeleteHere in the Hudson Valley the Aurora peaked around 10-11pm. The Facebook page of Hudson Valley Weather has dozens of stunning photos from all across the Valley. I watched from my front yard in my bathrobe!
ReplyDeleteMy brother who has travelled to Alaska to see the Northern Lights said that even there, they didn't see the spectrum of reds and purples visible here. Once-in-a-lifetime experience, never expected in this area. Grateful, awed and humbled.
At 10:52 last night there was an unusually bright burst of color straight overhead above the Puget Sound. It was otherworldly as the sky brightened and lit up with every color imaginable, dancing and shimmering. It was like being enveloped in a curtain of light, on all sides. The color reflected off the water too. A few hundred people gathered in Hansville, WA near Point No Point lighthouse cheered. It was a magical once-in-lifetime experience.
ReplyDeleteAt this time of year, the skies over arctic region are constantly luminous and northern lights cannot easily be seen. However, we have certainly had our share of aurorae during long and dark winters. It is great that this great celestial spectacle can now be shared with our southern friends also.
ReplyDeleteWe drove about an hour outside the city lights to our favorite patch of dark sky in a rural county park. I've never seen the aurora fill the sky so fully or last so long. We reluctantly tore ourselves away from the show after a couple of hours and didn't get home until about 2am, but it was worth the yawns today!
ReplyDeleteNorthern US? I live in southern AZ and have incredible photos of the aurora framing saguaro from 15 miles north of the border.
ReplyDeleteMy friend living in South Carolina sent me photos of what he ws seeing. It was amazing. So apparently the lights dipped very far south last night.
ReplyDeleteNorthern US and Europe - does Canada not exist? Come on!
ReplyDeleteUshuaia also saw Aurora Australis!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pagina12.com.ar/735825-se-registraron-auroras-boreales-en-ushuaia
We saw them way down here in the Mojave desert, east of Joshua Tree.. magnificent..
ReplyDeleteIf we were able to put pictures here,
I would show you pure magic
Visible down to Yuba County which I’d Cental California. Lots of dramatic pictures from all over the North of Cali
ReplyDeleteAt the Tennessee -Alabama border, to the naked eye the sky merely looked lighter than it should be and a bit odd. However, using a phone camera, the color was spectacular.
ReplyDeleteIt was seen last night in Conroe, TX, north of Houston.
ReplyDeleteWe saw it in Columbia, Missouri! Such a thrill!
ReplyDeleteI went outside a couple of times last night in Basel Switzerland but i didn’t see anything. I really hope this isn’t the only chance. I’ve seen the lights once and it was phenomenal. An other worldly experience i will never forget.
ReplyDeleteWe dragged out kids out of bed at 3 in the morning in Boston to see the lights. Not quite as spectacular as these pictures, but very special.
ReplyDeleteMy sister sent me pictures of the northern lights from Missouri. They were visible to them around midnight—gorgeous deep fuschia and lime green.
ReplyDeleteWe saw it here in the Bay Area!!!! And from our backyard using the iPhone as eyes. The sky was a glorious pink over the northern rooftops. I’m now collecting pictures from friends and family from all over the US and the world. So awesome!!!!! I sure hope it repeats tonight!!
ReplyDeleteThe tweet with “Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely [over Edinburgh]?” is a (partial) quote from the Simpsons episode “22 Short Films about Springfield” (the Steamed Hams segment).
ReplyDeleteWe were lucky enough to see Aurora last night (faintly) in south-western BC, despite huge amounts of light pollution. It was so cool - have never had any luck in the city before.
They put on an impressive show in Southern Kentucky. It was amazing and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised this story appeared so far down in the paper--I thought for sure it would be a major headline today! Here on our farm in western Washington, my husband and I stayed outside from 10:30 to 12:30 gazing at this spectacular aurora show. We've never seen the lights here before, and I thought that if we saw anything it would be low on the northern horizon and perhaps only visible through the camera. But wow! We were amazed to actually see the silver, pink, and pale green/blue lights dancing across the entire sky (photos showed the brilliant colors). It literally gave us chills. Our daughter even saw them in Seattle despite all of the light pollution there. We will definitely be out again tonight if we get an encore!
ReplyDeleteVery faint, city lights too bright :(.
ReplyDeleteMy husband loves that you included a Simpson’s quote. He thinks it was done unintentionally, I think whoever included it recognized the reference. Can anyone settle our debate?
ReplyDeleteDayton, southwest Ohio, even into Kentucky got the light show. Many Facebook posts by friends. I hope to get away from the city lights tonight.
ReplyDeleteAurora looked very pale to me in Seattle. But on my iPhone the colors came out. How many of these photos are from iPhones, and not what people actually see? I'm curious.
ReplyDeleteJust to note and expand on this article... The effects of the solar storm were also visible in the southern hemisphere. Last night in Ushuaia we were given a great show.
ReplyDeleteI had trouble listening to NPR on FM radio yesterday - the signal kept dropping out. While I don't have good radio or TV reception in north central NJ, NPR is usually not a problem for me. I wondered if this storm caused the issues for me, but I don't have an electrical engineering team or scientists who can confirm it for me. ;-b
ReplyDeleteYes solar storms can interfere. You are correct.
DeleteHave there been disruptions to SW radio? What disruptions have there been and what more are expected?
ReplyDeleteMaterial ejected from dark spots is a broad term. What materials exactly?
What did I miss in this article. Were these questions answered?
I assumed the local weather would make the aurora impossible to see, but around 11pm I noticed the stars were visible again, so the sky had cleared and I went outside to look.
ReplyDeleteSo glad I did, because I was able to see it from my front yard. Magical experience.
Incredibly, we saw the aurora borealis last night on the outskirts of Portland. The streaks of teal and magenta were easy to see even with the light pollution, and I was astonished to catch the display overhead. (Local news articles stated that the only visibility would be at the horizon to the north. Around 11:30 p.m., the lights stretched halfway across the sky.) Unforgettable experience. Between this storm and the total solar eclipse, the sun has really put on a spectacular show lately!
ReplyDeleteI managed to see the northern lights in western NY. It was slightly hazy, and they were not colorful or very bright, but there they were.
ReplyDeleteIn the Hudson Valley the horizon was very light and once I was away from town and on a hill I could see a green glow. Had read that night camera on the phone would pick up more detail so used that and found they were very spectacular when viewed that way.
ReplyDeleteIn photos my son sent from New Zealand the sky there was a red spectrum.
Solar indicies are still elevated although the Space Weather Prediciton Center has downgraded the space weather forecast for the next 24 hours from extreme to severe. Still, there should be another marvelous display again tonight.
ReplyDeleteThe view in Hansville, WA over the Puget Sound last night was spectacular!
DeleteWe saw it in Southern Idaho! I was amazed. I never thought I’d get to see the Aurora Borealis. I could have stayed out there all night staring at the sky. So lucky are we all!
ReplyDeleteThere were lots of red and purples in western NC. Spectacular without being a Carrington Event. I’d love to see careful reporting on the impact to the electrical grid and other infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteSuch amazing views! Thanks for this article. Keep posting images!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to all those who have had the joy of seeing this phenomenom first-hand!
Spectacular here in central Washington State. Covered most of the sky, even southwest, at about 11. At 10 we could see a green glow in the east and just subtle streaks, but by 11 it was over us and looked like a modernist painting with vivid streaks of green and pink in all directions and slowly changing. By midnight it was gone and we went to sleep, so if we got another burst, we missed it. It was quite different from what we've seen before in more northern latitudes.
ReplyDeleteSolar storm 'Northern Lights' carry fascinating chemistry element scientific identities information.
DeleteI got a few dozen spectacular photos from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, all around 11 p.m. local time. What fun! Last time I saw the Northern Lights was from a cruise ship in Glacier Bay National Park. These new ones are better.
ReplyDeleteIt was definitely visible in Southeast Texas all the way to the Gulf Coast. I've seen tons of photos from the northern suburbs of Houston, and some from Galveston and Beaumont.
ReplyDeleteThey were visible in Long Island too! I can’t believe I missed them in Iceland but saw them at my childhood home!
ReplyDeleteWe saw it in western Wisconsin too, around 11pm, though we nearly missed it (a neighbor tipped us off). It was a cloudless sky but I could have mistaken the flares for streaky clouds, so subtle was the color. Only after upping the contrast and saturation on my IPhone’s photos did the pinks and greens jump out. Now I wonder just how enhanced all the other images I’ve ever seen of Northern Lights were.
ReplyDeleteSame with us in Portland, OR. Very subtle, but phone pix were more contrasting - not an iPhone, though. Does make one wonder!
DeleteI used a Nikon D800 and a 20mm wide angle lens. Photos are invariably more striking because the camera is able to capture multi-second shots, and the longer the exposure, the brighter the image. The eye is also color blind at low light levels but the camera is not, so the reds are captured better with a camera.
DeleteI wandered outside in the dark with my iPhone last night and was able to get a few shots, but I really wasn’t prepared to see anything because of the weather. But it was clearly visible, and magical.
DeleteI just stood there staring, transfixed and didn’t dare run inside to get my Nikon (same one as yours).
However, it turns out recent iPhones are fairly excellent at capturing the night sky!
If you go a place with true dark skies (almost NOWHERE), you would find the view much better I am sure. The eyes will adapt to the dark, too, helping to augment the experience.
DeleteDo you see the photo of the pastel-shaded lights behind the sculpture of a standing man in the article? That EXACTLY what the aurora looked like naked eye in the Omaha area between 9-10 PM last night. (We got a second display around 1 AM that showed much more rapid movement of the curtains and streamers, but the colors were a lot subtler then).
DeleteOur rods and cones aren't equipped to register the colors as vibrantly as a camera lens can. The display I saw last night was almost entirely white to the naked eye with some very subtle green and rose hues from time to time, but still absolutely spectacular. The movement and intensity is far more intriguing to me than the hue.
DeleteHi, it was seen in nearly every state in the USA. By early evening it was seen in Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois. But as the skies darkened it was also seen in Arizona, California, Montana, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Idaho. It was also seen in Australia and New Zealand. A good source for all of this is the Facebook group "Alberta Aurora Chasers." This might be the best source of information on a story like this. I am American, but have lived in Alberta since 2008. This Facebook group's citizen scientists discovered a new phenomenon in the night's sky called STEVE. The person who started the group now has publications in scientific journals as academics have learned from this group. People from around the world post to the group as they begin to see the Aurora appear. It was an awesome show last night here in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. But it was also seen nearly everywhere!
ReplyDeleteNot where and when it was cloudy. Ask me how I know.
DeleteHoping for better luck tonight.
Is it only accessible through Facebook? I gave up face book years ago after Cambridge analytica. It would be great if they used another free web host without the checkered past.
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