Magnetic energy had accumulated in the sun this week like a twisted rubber band in a corkscrew. On Thursday morning, the rubber band broke and the accumulated energy was released as a solar flare, ejecting around a billion tons of plasma gas that could cause the glare known as the Northern Lights once that he reached Earth this weekend.
But will it even be visible on Saturday night or early Sunday morning?
“If I was in the northern part of the United States, then I would be looking at the sky,” said Howard J. Singer, chief scientist at the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center on Saturday.
The Forecast Center released a geomagnetic storm watch on Friday indicating that the storm could bring the Northern Lights, the scientific name for the Northern Lights, over Washington state, the upper Midwest and the Northeast on Saturday. The storm was rated G3 on a scale from G1 to G5. It shouldn’t cause technological disruption, the center said.
“Usually when we get to that level we’ll see the Northern Lights in the northern states,†William Murtagh, program coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center, said in an interview.
But there are unknowns associated with any magnetic storm, especially the exact time of its arrival. The sun’s large expulsion of plasma, called coronal mass ejection, travels through space at about one million to six million miles per hour. With Earth about 92 million kilometers from the sun, the path for ejected particles is short, sometimes as short as 15 hours or as long as four days, Dr Murtagh said.
“This one is pretty quick,” Mr Murtagh said on Saturday. “We are expecting it today, so it will be a little over 50 hours of transit.”
However, because the ejected particles are so far apart, scientists are unable to predict the exact moment. But if the particles arrive on Earth during the day, there will be no light show, experts said. The same is true if you live in a city with high light pollution or in an area with cloudy weather.
But if it’s dark, the skies are clear, and light pollution is low, there’s a good chance people will see the Northern Lights, experts said.
The Prediction Center can give people about 30 minutes of head time before the lights are visible, because its Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite detects the tons of particles while they are still between the sun and Earth.
Mr Murtagh said residents could monitor the social media accounts and website for status updates throughout the night.
When the magnetic storm hits Earth, the colored curtains of purple and green – if they materialize – will be the result of the Sun’s magnetic projectile interacting with the planet’s magnetic field, and “the way it does. couples with Earth’s magnetic field will dictate how strong the storm is, â€Mr. Murtagh said.
The stronger the storm, the more likely it is that areas in lower latitudes will see the Northern Lights, experts said. This weekend’s magnetic storm could appear in areas near cities such as New York, Chicago, Boise, Idaho and Salem, Oregon. The lights typically last for several hours and could be visible all night, Mr Murtagh said.
In 1859, a super solar storm caused the Northern Lights that could be seen near tropical latitudes in places like Cuba and El Salvador. In 2011, the Northern Lights were seen as far south as Alabama.
Meteorologists across the country were already telling residents that they couldn’t see the lights Where advise those traveling north to contemplate the sky at night.
An inhabitant of Des Moines had already prepared Saturday afternoon to see the spectacle in the sky.
“I’m going to go to an area of ​​dark sky, north of town, then sit back and wait,†said Brennan Jontz, 28, who is part of the Iowa Storm Chasing Network on Facebook. a meeting. ” You have to be patient ; that’s the name of the game with the Northern Lights.
He will bring a lawn chair, he said. He will head for the cornfields, away from the city lights, and enter somewhere on a gravel road. Then he’ll sit down, take out his camera, and wait until he’s lit up again.
