12/10/2023 0 Comments Grand central station northern lights"Active periods are typically about 30 minutes long and occur every two hours, if the activity is high. local time, although an active period can occur anytime during the dark hours," Deehr wrote in the guide. "Dress warmly, plan to watch the sky between 10 p.m. Ideally, time your trip to coincide with the new moon, and make sure to get away from city lights when it's time to look up, he added. Winter and springtime are generally less cloudy than autumn in and around the northern auroral zone, so planning a trip between December and April makes sense. You also need clear, dark skies, emphasizes Charles Deehr, a professor emeritus and aurora forecaster at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute, whose guide to aurora viewing has lots of great information. When the sun shoots these geysers of plasma in the direction of Earth, wonderful auroras can be expected.īut it's not just the solar weather forecast you need to monitor to have the aurora experience of a lifetime. Coronal mass ejections are the most powerful source of charged particles emitted from the corona, the sun's upper atmosphere. The good news is that the sun's 11-year cycle of activity is picking up and we will see more sun spots, flares and coronal mass ejections going forward than in the previous years. You need darkness to see the northern lights, and places in the auroral zone have precious little of it during the summer months. If you're planning an aurora-viewing trip, try not to schedule it in the middle of summer. The northern lights are more formally known as the aurora borealis, and are caused by interactions between the solar wind, which is the stream of charged particles emanating from the sun, and the Earth's magnetic field. Related: Aurora myths, legends and misconceptions When to see the Northern Lights Read on to find out when and where to see the northern lights, and what powers this dazzling display. For example, the summer may be a good time for a vacation, but a better time to see auroras is actually between winter and spring. But you need to know when and where to go. If you need equipment, our roundups for the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography can help make sure you're ready for the next aurora event.īut for those who are lucky enough to catch a strong display, the shimmering lights can appear like curtains, like pulses of jets or like other light-show phenomena - all available above your head, for free.įor best results, you can blaze your own trail somewhere along the "auroral zone" that encircles Earth's northern reaches. And if you're hoping to capture them on camera, consider our picks for the best equipment for aurora photography and how to edit aurora photos. "Geomagnetic activity is expected to escalate further in reaction to elevated solar wind speeds approaching 700 km/s, likely leading to G2 storm levels on Saturday, September 28."Ī map shared by the SWPC shows how far south the northern lights, or aurora borealis, could potentially be seen.Ĭanada and the northern tier of the U.S., including Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, are included as potential viewing areas, as well as New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine on the East Coast.Editor's note: If you hope to see the northern lights yourself, check out our guide on where and how to photograph the aurora. ![]() ![]() "Geomagnetic activity is expected to rise on September 27th due to an increasingly disturbed solar wind field associated with effects of a positive polarity coronal hole high speed stream," the SWPC states online. The variations in color are based on the type of gas particles colliding. The storms are a result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere, experts say.
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