It’s almost a dream to see the northern lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, in its fullness, under a sky which is not plagued with pollution. You may already know how they look; perhaps you can envision the magenta and green swirling in the sky. It’s honestly a sight people across the world desire to see in likeness, but did you know that they’ve been making their appearance further in the south as well?
Well, the northern lights are an amalgamation of colors and lights that light up the sky in the colder areas. Places like Iceland and Canada get a lot of traction just for people trying to chase these lights. What makes people want to chase it more, too, is its mystifying reason for existing. It occurs when charged particles from the sun hit the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s the perfect set of criterias met to create lights ranging from dim and barely visible, to vivid and full of energy.
But seeing these lights in the south down here in America is not something that would be typically expected. Lots of this can be attributed to the increasing number of solar storms, which is categorized as when the low and high speed solar wind streams that rotate around the sun with each other, releasing tons of energy in the form of solar flares. The larger they get, the more they impact the Earth.
When these particles get captured within the Earth’s magnetic field lines, it gets funneled down towards the poles. These particles interacting with the gasses in the atmosphere bring us those beautiful reds, pinks, and greens farther across the world. The year is comin to a halt, and the last time we had this solar storm and were able to see the northern lights could be our very last. October 11th, 2024 brought us a solar storm so severe the northern lights were visible all the way down to Florida, but even catching these lights is difficult, because the skies need to be clear, and we live in a society and environment so polluted by light that these beautiful enigmas of the sky are hardly ever visible.
The next time you hear about a solar storm, even if it can’t be guaranteed or well predicted, be sure to keep your ears open about the auroras, and eyes open in perhaps getting the chance to see these once in a lifetime lights that dazzle the night skies.
