RICHMOND, Ky. (LEX 18) — For two nights this week, the night sky held some unusual pink and green light as the northern lights came south.
“It's only during the really big storms, what they call the geomagnetic storms,” said Dr. Mark Pitts from Eastern Kentucky University. “For people who are as far south of a latitude as we are, being able to see the aurora requires that these storms be particularly intense.”
Dr. Pitts is a professor of physics and astronomy at EKU, and he says these colors are caused by electrically charged particles from the sun crashing into the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
“Being that it is around solar maximum, this is something that we can expect to happen at this time in what we call the solar cycle,” he added.
The solar maximum is the peak of the sun’s approximately 11-year cycle, and it involves the north and south poles of the star switching their positions, leading to chaos in the magnetic field.
“I recently went outside with a solar telescope just to look at the face of the sun, and sure enough, there were a lot of sunspots,” Pitts shared. “It's from those areas that these showers of particles erupt from and can head our way. You can start to expect that the frequency of these aurora events will be increasing as long as those sunspots remain.”
This increase in solar activity started around 2023 and it is estimated to last until approximately 2026. The aurora showed up the night of May 10, 2024, and more appearances could happen in the near future. However, there is no way to predict when the next big solar storm will happen.
“As soon as an eruption does happen, then the astronomers can calculate where all of those particles are aimed,” Pitts said. “If it looks like it's aimed towards Earth, then they can give the warning about two or three days in advance.”
When the next geomagnetic storm comes this far south, you might not be able to see it with your eyes unless you have very little light pollution. However, you can use your phone camera to see the sky light up a little better.
