TWH – Late yesterday, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory reported a large coronal mass ejection, and the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a geomagnetic storm watch for a possible G3 event for tonight today (May 11). The event may result in the aurora borealis being visible as far south as southern Oregon and northern California, Denver, Kansas City, and Cincinnati as well as the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Overall, auroras appear to be becoming more frequent and those of us living or traveling closer to the Earth’s poles stand to benefit from glorious night sky display over the next few years. Residents as far south as central California, Arizona, and North Carolina have reported seeing auroras in recent months.
Typically, auroras are visible in a band known as the “auroral zone” in a 10° – 20° swath from the geomagnetic poles. In the northern hemisphere, aurora borealis is visible from areas around the Arctic such as Alaska, northern Canada in the provinces of Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Newfoundland and Labrador, and northern Quebec, as well as Iceland, Finland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, and, in Russia, Siberia.
A strong Aurora display over an Icelandic lava-field [Photo Credit: L. Perabo]
Aurora australis is typically visible from the northern latitudes of Antarctica and the extreme southern latitudes of Australia, Argentina, Chile South Africa, and New Zealand.
They are generally visible from late fall to early spring.
Auroras are caused by the collision of charged particles from the sun with atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere. The sun is constantly emitting charged particles, called the solar wind. These particles travel through space at speeds of up to 1 million miles per hour. When the solar wind reaches the Earth’s magnetic field, it is directed towards the poles.
At the poles, the magnetic field is weaker, and the charged particles are able to enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
When these particles collide with atoms in the atmosphere, they excite the atoms, causing them to release photons, that is particles of light. The color of the Northern Lights depends on the type of atom that is being excited. Oxygen atoms produce green and red light, while nitrogen atoms produce blue and purple light.
In the coming years, the solar wind is forecast to become more prevalent with larger geomagnetic storms occurring more frequently as the sun enters the peak of its 11-year sunspot cycle. The intensity of the storms increases for about three years after that peak. The auroral zone expands as a result of increasing solar storm activity and we are now walking into peak period. Experts say that we will arrive at the next peak in 2025. The current cycle began in 2019.
The auroras have intrigued humankind since prehistoric times. They have inspired both modern science and cultural heritage in the form of folk beliefs. Some culture approached the auroras with concern while others revered them. In Norse stories, the lights are said to be the gleaming spirits of those who dies in battle. In Finnish stories, they are revontulet or foxfire caused by magical creatures that move so quickly on the snow they create sparks. Among the Sami people, the lights represent the souls of the dead and it was improper to discuss them. In Indigenous American stories they are magical animals in the night and in other stories they are dwarves boiling blubber; and to many, they are souls of the dead. Among the Maori, they are the spirits of the ancestors.
The oldest mention of an aurora is from China 2,600 BCE. The record says that Fubao, the mother of the Yellow Empire Huangdi, while sitting in the wilderness by a bay, saw strong lightning moving around the star Su, which belongs to the constellation of BeiDou (Ursa Major or the Big Dipper). Fubao said she saw a “magical band of light” that appeared like “moving clouds and flowing water.”
An aurora blankets the Earth beneath a celestial night sky as the International Space Station orbited 261 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North America Image credit: NASA – This image or video was catalogued by Johnson Space Center of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: iss061e138167., Public Domain.
Last year researchers went about verifying datable records and found various confirmable dates. The earliest known report had from the 7th Century BCE in the Bamboo Annals, a historical chronicle of the history of ancient China, spanning about 2,400 to 299 BCE.
The researchers from Nagoya University and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology found mention of a ‘five-colored light’ spanning the northern sky. Dated to 977 or 957 BCE. That observation in China would be the oldest supportable record. The team published their findings in the journal Advances in Space Research.
In the West, Roman philosopher Seneca wrote about the northern lights in his Naturales Quaestiones around 65 CE, classifying them based on shapes and describing their colors. Greek explorer Pytheas, however, described an aurora 400 years earlier.
But the earliest known reference to an aurora may be much older still. NASA scientists have hypothesized that a Cro-Magnon cave painting from 30,000 years ago may be depicting the northern lights.
As the aurora becomes more frequent, new resources can help us track them and perhaps get a chance to see them a little better.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offers a short-term forecast of the location and intensity of auroras. The Geophysical Institute run out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks also provides aurora forecasts for locations in North America, Europe, and the southern hemisphere. Both SpaceWeather and SpaceWeatherLive are excellent resources to hunt for auroras.
“For many people, the aurora is a beautiful nighttime phenomenon that is worth traveling to Arctic regions just to observe,” NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center writes on its website. “It is the only way for most people to actually experience space weather.” However, if you can’t travel there, Auroramax has a live feed from the Canadian north, but only during winter. They also have some replays from auroras past to hold us over until we get the chance to see them.
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