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The world-famous colorful northern lights may reveal themselves to a wide swath of Americans Friday night due to an impending solar storm forecast to reach Earth.
The dazzling phenomenon, also known as the aurora borealis, is renowned for the spectacle it regularly puts on at both of Earth’s poles. But thanks to the solar storm, which could pose a minimal threat to things like satellites, GPS signals and power grids, the display may be more widely visible than normal.
That’s because when the solar particles interact with Earth’s magnetosphere, the powerful eruption should make the vibrant northern lights visible to more of the Northern Hemisphere.
Here’s what to know about the northern lights and how to see them this weekend.
See photos:Solar storm makes northern lights visible to much of US, world during weekend
Where will the auroras be visible?
For most of the time, auroras are best seen around the magnetic poles of the Northern and Southern hemispheres in Europe, Asia and North America. In the U.S., Alaska is well known to have the best viewing opportunities for the northern lights.
But an incoming solar storm should make the auroras visible farther from the poles, according to NOAA’s three-day forecast.. The geomagnetic activity detected by NOAA has a Kp index of 5, meaning the northern lights will also be brighter, according to the agency.
“If you are in the right place, these aurora can be quite pleasing to look at,” NOAA says.
In the U.S., the auroras may become visible in more than a dozen northern states, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center’s experimental Aurora view line. The visibility for viewing also will depend on local weather conditions and city lights.
States that may have a decent view of the auroras on Friday are:
- Washington
- Idaho
- Montana
- North Dakota
- Minnesota
- Wisconsin
- Michigan
A thin red ‘viewline’ representing the southern-most locations from which you may see the aurora on the northern horizon extends to:
- Wyoming
- South Dakota
- Iowa
- New York
- Vermont
- New Hampshire
- Maine
When is the best time to see the northern lights?
Solar storms send particles flowing from the sun that get caught up in Earth’s magnetic field, causing colorful auroras to form as they interact with molecules of atmospheric gases. This weekend, the resulting glowing auroras may be quite a sight – if you look up at the right time.
Even though conditions are prime for more impending aurora shows, experts have long struggled to accurately forecast exactly when and where the phenomenon will ever occur. Even the best predictions can accurately be made only a few days or even hours in advance.
But as a rule of thumb, if the weather is clear, the best aurora is usually visible within an hour or two of midnight, according to NOAA. And if it looks as if the northern lights will flare up near you, you should get away from cities and travel to dark locations free from light pollution so you can best see them.
The agency also maintains an aurora dashboard that should help skygazers track the phenomenon.
What causes the northern lights?
The auroras are a natural light display in Earth’s sky that are famously best seen in high-latitude regions of the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
The phenomenon is caused when electrically charged particles from space enter Earth’s atmosphere and collide with molecules and gases like oxygen and nitrogen, causing the atmospheric particles to gain energy. To return to their normal state, the particles release that energy in the form of light, according to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks Geophysical Institute website, which tracks the phenomenon.
As auroras form, Earth’s magnetic field redirects the particles toward the poles through a process that produces a stunning display of rays, spirals and flickers that have fascinated humans for millennia. Whether hues of green, red, blue and even pink dance about in the sky depends on the altitude where the collisions occur, as well as the composition and density of the atmosphere at the time.
Why northern lights activity is increasing
Now that the sun is at the height of its 11-year cycle, the increase in solar activity has more frequently fueled “space weather” that produces the right conditions for northern lights to flourish.
Regions of intense magnetic activity known as sunspots are proliferating on the solar surface and are capable of releasing intense bursts of radiation resulting in solar flares that can hurtle toward Earth at the speed of light, according to NOAA. Some of the flares can be accompanied by coronal mass ejections, or clouds of plasma and charged particles, that emerge from the sun’s outermost atmosphere, the corona.
These ejections can collide with Earth’s magnetosphere, the barrier protecting humanity from the harshest effects of space weather, to produce geomagnetic storms that unleash spectacular views of the northern lights in parts of the country where auroras are not often visible.
What’s more, because NASA expects the solar maximum to continue into 2025, aurora chasers should have plenty more opportunities to catch the northern lights.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
