May 10, 2024, Brandenburg, Falkenhagen: Bright green and slightly reddish aurora lights in the night … [+]
The dazzling aurora display on May 10 and 11 was one of the strongest on record in the past 500 years, according to a NASA statement.
In another claim to record status, the British Geological Survey claimed the aurora display in the UK was the result of the most extreme and longest-lasting geomagnetic storm recorded in 155 years.
And there is a chance that it will happen again.
“We’ll be studying this event for years,” said Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, acting director of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars Space Weather Analysis Office. “This will help us test the limits of our models and understanding of solar storms.” The space agency added that these are “probably one of the strongest aurora displays recorded in the last 500 years”.
Simultaneous blows
Solar superstorm 10/11. May caused northern Lights (northern lights) be visible as far south as Florida in the Northern Hemisphere, while aurora australis (southern lights) appeared as far north as New Zealand.
NASA first detected the start of the solar storm on May 7, when two solar flares were found. Over the next four days, an astonishing seven were activated, all aimed at ejecting coronal masses – clouds of charged particles – in the direction of Earth. They traveled at different speeds and arrived at the same time.
“All of the CMEs arrived pretty much at once, and the conditions were just right to create a really historic storm,” said Elizabeth MacDonald, NASA’s Heliophysics Lead for Citizen Science and a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Maryland.
The biggest since 2003
According to the BGS, May’s geomagnetic storm—caused by a series of successive solar flares and accompanying CMEs—shares characteristics with several of the largest storms since 1869, with the last geomagnetic storm occurring on Halloween 2003. Daily geomagnetic activity has been recorded since 1869, it says.
The aurora is the result of the solar wind in space – charged particles from the sun – that are accelerated down the Earth’s magnetic field lines.
The Earth’s geomagnetic field is compared using horizontal magnetic field strength readings, which at Lerwick in the Sheland Islands, Scotland, typically measure around 30-50 nanoTesla (nT)m, according to the BGS. In the evening of May 10, they reached a peak of 800 nT.
The return of Aurora?
The sunspot that caused the flares and CMEs, called AR13364, is currently facing Venus, where it ejected a massive X12-class solar flare on May 20. It was the strongest in the current solar cycle. As the Sun turns toward Earth, AR13364 is expected to remain active, prompting warnings of possible stronger geomagnetic storms.
New article published in Nature states that even stronger geomagnetic storms are expected in the next year or two as the Sun approaches “solar maximum,” the peak of its magnetic activity that occurs once every 11 years.
We wish you clear skies and wide eyes.