Major geomagnetic storm caused a light show during southern lights - photo
Kyiv • UNN
A strong geomagnetic storm on the Sun caused a spectacular display of the southern lights (Aurora Australis), which was visible in New Zealand and southern Australia: bright red and green colors lit up the sky before sunrise.
The spectacular southern aurora australis (Aurora australis) could be seen by residents of New Zealand and southern Australia after a strong geomagnetic storm on the surface of the Sun.
This is reported UNN with reference to The Guardian and Newshub.
Details
Residents of southern Australia as well as people living in New Zealand in the recent 24 hours captured the moment the southern aurora Australis lit up the sky green and red before sunrise.
Otago Museum director and astronomer Dr. Ian Griffin, who witnessed the moment, told Newshub it was the most powerful storm in about seven years.
I woke up at home around 4am and just looked out the window. Where I live on the Otago Peninsula, the auroras are not usually visible
It was known that the sparkling spectacle would occur on the same night as a penumbral lunar eclipse that would be visible around the world.
Photographer Jordan Cantelo captured the "incredible" sight in Albany, Western Australia, and said the light was so powerful it could be seen with the naked eye.
Seeing the vibrant red and green colors was just phenomenal. I'm shaking just talking about it now
The aurora borealis is expected to continue to emit spectacular colors for the next 12 months.
What causes the glow near the north and south poles?
Auroras appear near the north and south poles as boreal and Australian auroras. Bright bursts of activity on the Sun are directly related to these elusive lights we see in the night sky.
Storms on the Sun, which cause phenomena such as coronal mass ejections and solar wind from coronal holes, send charged particles hurtling through space.
Since our Sun is 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) away, the eruption we observe on the Sun may take several days to reach our atmosphere.
If the Earth is in the path of a particle stream, our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere react to their impact. When charged particles from the Sun hit atoms and molecules in the Earth's atmosphere, they excite these atoms, making them glow.
Recall
In November 2023, in several regions of Ukraine eyewitnesses observed a rare optical phenomenon of northern lights. It was observed in Kyiv, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Odessa and Donetsk regions.