For those eager to see the Northern Lights, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) offers the Aurora Dashboard. This tool provides real-time, animated predictions of where the aurora might be visible in the next few minutes and the following day.
What Causes the Aurora Borealis?
According to NASA, auroras are ribbons of light that weave across Earth’s polar regions. These light shows are triggered by magnetic storms caused by solar activity, such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections.
The solar wind carries charged particles away from the sun, which then collide with Earth’s atmosphere at incredible speeds. The Earth’s magnetic field redirects these particles towards the poles, where they interact with atmospheric gases to produce the auroras.
During major geomagnetic storms, the auroras can expand away from the poles and become visible over parts of the United States.
Billy Teets, director of Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, explains that these particles are “deflected towards the poles of Earth by our planet’s magnetic field and interact with our atmosphere, depositing energy and causing the atmosphere to fluoresce.”
