Image: © Kevin Dempsey. Used with permission
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A solar outburst over the weekend delivered lovely aurorae Monday, setting the night sky aglow over mid-latitude regions rarely treated to such sights.
Plasma that erupted from the sun Saturday in a burst called a coronal mass ejection reached Earth Monday and delivered charged particles into the upper atmosphere. Those charged particles can excite atoms in the ionosphere, which emit light as they return to their unexcited state. The resulting aurorae (aka the aurora borealis) could be seen in parts of more than half the 50 states, according to Spaceweather.com, where users reported sightings in distinctly non-Arctic locales such as Alabama, Virginia and Kansas.
Thanks to the efforts of amateur skywatchers, those of us who missed these aurorae can still share in their beauty.
Click here for a slide show of Monday's northern lights in a series of photographs taken from sites across North America.
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9 Comments
Add CommentThese are pretty pictures and a nice report of the CME effects reported by the public - what's missing is an assessment of the impact of this storm and our technological management responses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've been reading about the risk of catastrophic CME events wiping out our satellite and power transmission infrastructure - with this recent event, are we at imminent risk of more devastating effects?
I have similar photos I took on September 12, 2000.(Redroof and Houslights) There are rainbows (3) and a fourth fading streak against the red sky. I used a Sony Mavica-floppy disk camera. Not like the multicolored ones here. As minutes went bye the color red appeared as if the horizon was ablaze. I could post it here if I knew where. Missed at least 3 minutes of the ever changing panorama because I ran out of floppy disks and had to run back to my apartment to get more. I wish I could share it here, but I don't know where to up-load. The pictures were taken in Rohnert Park, Sonoma County, CA
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeautiful images. Does anyone know why the lights were visible so far south this time ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo-where in this very shallow presentation of this CME Scientific Event is there any discourse on the Massive Global Warming affect of this and many other CME. There could have been a Trillion-trillion Kilowatts of Solar heat energy BTU's added to Earth's atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut no, let's focus on 0.001% Human cause and ignor the 99.999% Solar input with it's occasional mega-bursts of CME.. Duck, - here comes another one...!!!
Having been stationed in the Arctic, the lights are AMAZING!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUp there, they are so close you can "hear" them. They make the hair on your neck stand up!
Really.
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Very good Eddy,, use a term for power and talk about energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, that makes sense... especially if you consider the yearly heat additions from Santa's sleigh as it zooms faster than the speed of light to hit all the homes in one night
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHold onto your fantasies Eddie... apparently they (and perhaps some kind of payment from the oil industry?) are all you have.
Nice images, although other than the one taken in AR all the others are from Northern states...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did turn to the local ABC affiliate TV station, I think it was on Mon., & was greeted with a display screen with a picture of a satellite dish & a message something like 'problem with service provider'. I wondered at the time whether it could be the result of some CME activity (I wasn't otherwise aware of any). Could be totally a unrelated issue, however, as I didn't encounter problems with any of the other 2,000 channels...
Sorry - I just noticed the date of this article. Never mind...
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