Since Friday night, a geomagnetic storm has been hitting Earth, offering many a chance to see the northern lights, or aurora borealis, across the country.
The lights are normally only visible near the Arctic Circle, caused by particles from the sun’s solar wind hitting the Earth’s magnetic field.
Dr. Michael Kirk with NASA says this current storm is a result of a series of “coronal mass ejections” from the sun.
“What that is, is a big loop of plasma, so this is electrons, protons, neutrons, all held aloft in the atmosphere by strong magnetic fields. Eventually, something becomes unstable, and that whole system erupts off the sun,” Kirk said.
The Space Weather Prediction Center is reporting that early Saturday morning, solar geomagnetic energy was observed reaching G5 Level - Extreme conditions for a second time in 24 hours.
Across the planet, geomagnetic storming will continue at varying intensities through at least Monday.
The threat of additional solar flares and coronal mass ejections will remain until the large, magnetically complex sunspot cluster rotates out of Earth’s view over the next several days.
So far, there have been reports of power grid irregularities and degraded high-frequency communications and GPS signals.
Friday night, the aurora was visible across much of the United States and into the Bahamas.
Weather permitting, the aurora borealis will be visible again Sunday night. To see how to view the lights near you, visit the Space Weather Prediction Center’s forecast site here.