• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 618 4351
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Sun Rips Hole In Earth’s Magnetic Field Sparking Rare Red Auroras

September 27, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

Unusually powerful disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field have sparked some stunning red auroras this week, with the rare scarlet glow visible from locations across Europe and North America. Typically, the famous Northern Lights are made up of predominantly green hues, and while flashes or streaks of crimson are sometimes seen, sustained red skies are extremely uncommon.

The fiery display was caused by a massive spew of plasma – known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) – from the Sun. Striking the Earth on September 24, the CME punched a hole in our planet’s magnetic field, enabling highly charged particles to pour through and trigger a G2-class geomagnetic storm.

Advertisement

As these solar particles get channeled towards the poles, they interact with and excite gas atoms and molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere. These excited little guys then have to try and calm themselves down, which they do by releasing photons, thus giving rise to the spectacular light shows known as the aurora borealis (or Northern Lights) and aurora australis (Southern Lights).

If all of this sounds alarming then fear not, because it’s completely normal for charged solar particles to tear little holes in our magnetosphere. These punctures are usually very short-lived and pose no threat to us ground-dwellers.

What makes this latest geomagnetic storm a little different, however, is that the solar particles were able to smash into oxygen atoms high in the Earth’s atmosphere. Typically, solar winds reach an altitude of between 100 and 300 kilometers (60 to 180 miles), where there is a high concentration of oxygen atoms for them to react with. When this occurs, green light is given off, which is why this color tends to dominate the aurora.

A chart that demonstrates the altitude at which solar winds react with Earth's atmosphere to determine the color of the aurora. For example red auroras are created by atomic oxygen at between 170-300 km up.

The altitude at which solar winds react with Earth’s atmosphere determines the color of the aurora.

Image credit: © IFLScience

However, on this occasion, the charged particles reached a height of between 300 and 400 kilometers (180 to 240 miles), where oxygen is much less concentrated and requires a higher amount of energy in order to become excited. The result is a brilliant flash of red light, although these ruby auroras are somewhat fragile and can only be observed if the oxygen atoms remain undisturbed for long enough to spit out their red photons.

Advertisement

The human eye is also considerably less sensitive to red light than to green, which is another reason why red auroras are so rarely seen. No such problems this week, though, with Spaceweather reporting that the red lights were visible with the naked eye as far south as France.

With the Sun ramping up its activity as it heads towards the Solar Maximum in July 2025 (or earlier), we should get more and more of these spectacular sky shows.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Paris ramps up security as jihadist attacks trial starts
  2. Cricket-‘Western bloc’ has let Pakistan down, board chief says
  3. Analysis-Diverse boards to pick the next Boston and Dallas Fed bank chiefs
  4. Ancient Bison Found In Permafrost Is So Well Preserved Scientists Want To Clone It

Source Link: Sun Rips Hole In Earth’s Magnetic Field Sparking Rare Red Auroras

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Our Homo Sapiens Ancestors Shared The World With Neanderthals, Denisovans And Other Types Of Humans Whose DNA Lives On In Our Genes
  • Exclusive: How To Snap The Shortest Moments In Time
  • Look At This Super Cute, Super Rare White Alligator Just Hatched In Florida
  • Exclusive: Quantum Dots, From Old Colorful Glass To The Technology Of Tomorrow
  • Frozen Methane Under The Seabed Is Thawing As Oceans Warm – And Things Are Worse Than We Thought
  • There Is Something You Should Know About Wasabi
  • How Are Large Parts Of The Great Wall Of China Held Together? By “Biocrusts”
  • Halley’s Comet Is About To Begin Its 38-Year-Long Journey Back To Earth
  • How Could The Big Bang Arise From Nothing?
  • UFOs: How Astronomers Are Searching The Sky For Alien Probes Near Earth
  • How To Test If We’re Living In A Computer Simulation
  • World’s Oldest Living Land Animal, Jonathan The Tortoise, Celebrates 191st Birthday
  • 75-Million-Year-Old Fossil Is First-Ever Tyrannosaur Found With Stomach Contents
  • Early Humans Hunted And Ate Beavers 400,000 Years Ago
  • What Do Meteors’ Colors Tell Us?
  • Honey-Hunting Birds And Humans Work Together And Know Each Other’s Calls
  • A Guy Tried To Make A Toaster From Scratch And It Failed Beautifully
  • Kizil Caves – China’s Ancient Buddhist Legacy Is An Architectural Time Capsule
  • Why Are Human Babies So Rubbish? They’re Not, Posits New Study
  • The “God Flower” Is Disappearing And Folks Are Blaming Climate Change
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 618 4351
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2023 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version