Aurora Borealis Forecast: 9 Northern States Could Witness the Light Show Tonight..
People in the northern states might get a chance to see the northern lights tonight.
Over the weekend, the Sun released a burst of charged gas. This will pass by Earth’s magnetic field on Wednesday night, between 7 PM and 10 PM Eastern Time. This could cause an aurora, or northern lights, that might be visible as far south as South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
This solar flare, known as a coronal mass ejection, won’t directly hit Earth’s magnetic field, so tonight’s northern lights probably won’t reach as far south as some recent ones. The chance of a big, dramatic display is low. However, it’s not our last opportunity to see the northern lights. Here’s a quick explanation of why we’ve been seeing auroras more often lately.
Auroras happen when fast-moving, electrically charged gas, called plasma, gets caught up in Earth’s magnetic field. Bits of plasma collide with air in Earth’s upper atmosphere, releasing bright bursts of light. The greenish hue of most aurora comes from plasma colliding with oxygen molecules 60 to 125 miles above the ground; higher-altitude oxygen glows red. At slightly lower altitudes, nitrogen emits a pink or purple glow.
This solar flare, known as a coronal mass ejection, won’t directly hit Earth’s magnetic field, so tonight’s northern lights probably won’t reach as far south as some recent ones. The chance of a big, dramatic display is low. However, it’s not our last opportunity to see the northern lights. Here’s a quick explanation of why we’ve been seeing auroras more often lately.
The Sun’s restless magnetic field actually flips every 11 years, give or take a few. When that happens, it restarts a cycle in which the Sun gets more, and then less, active over a period of several years based on the shifting strength of its magnetic field, which interacts with the Sun’s plasma to cause solar flares, CMEs, and sunspots. During the most active part of the solar cycle, called a Solar Maximum, flares and CMEs are much more common, which means we get a lot more chances to see auroras.
And the current Solar Maximum is just getting started; NASA doesn’t expect it to peak until sometime in 2025.
