If seeing the Northern Lights is on your bucket list, you might be in luck. As long as you live as far south as New York and Chicago, perhaps you won’t need to travel to Alaska, Iceland, or Norway in order to fulfill your dream, as the aurora could be coming to you this weekend.
A space storm is approaching. A geomagnetic one. One colossal cloud of charged particles coming from the Sun is making its way towards Earth as you read this, and it’s expected to arrive on Saturday. The cloud, known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), stems from the solar corona, the layer of gas that surrounds the sun.
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Why it is happening
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that this particular CME can increase the reach and intensity of otherwise regular Northern Lights, also known as the aurora borealis, to the point of being visible from parts of the northern U.S. that would generally never see the magical phenomenon. Specifically, NOAA’s graph shows the lucky states of Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania might witness the lights, especially their northernmost regions. The same goes for northern parts of Britain, of course, which don’t get to see the aurora in usual conditions.
Though there’s no guarantee the Northern Lights will indeed be visible (there’s little room for guarantees in science, after all), the conditions are highly favorable, according to meteorologist Joe Charlevoix. Though the phenomenon is far from mysterious, it’s still kind of magical—especially for those who are not used to it.
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Nothing to fear
Understood though it might be, the rarity of the event can potentially make some people uneasy if they’re not aware of what they’re seeing (much like those who feared the Milky Way was some sort of alien invasion when they saw it during a blackout for the first time in their lives). So don’t fret, there’s nothing to fear—just pretty lights due to electromagnetic activity to enjoy.
The aurora is a natural display in the sky that is produced when the magnetosphere—the region of space surrounding Earth filled with charged particles that are manipulated by our planet’s magnetic field—is disturbed by sun activity. More specifically, by solar winds. This disturbance produces a magnetic reaction that causes the sky to light up in all kinds of beautiful, colorful, and harmless ways.
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Flaring up
And it’s not only the CME that stands to increase the usual scope of the aurora. A combination of several factors is at play, most importantly a sudden, high-energy blast of increased brightness on the sun, commonly known as a solar flare, that hit the Earth this Wednesday. The flare was intense enough it actually managed to disrupt radio operations in Europe and Africa.
It is the remnants of the flare and the giant CME that will allow us, all things being equal, to witness a magnificent event people far from the poles seldom get to see. So buckle up, get ready, and enjoy the rare view. Don’t forget to take photos!
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