The northern lights are most often seen in the northernmost regions of the Earth, but in recent months they have been seen further south. It’s no fluke, say the scientists, but part of a trend that will allow a wider swath of the world to get exceptional insight into the phenomenon for years to come.
The lights will be visible further south due to a change in the Sun’s magnetic fields, which change in an 11-year cycle between solar minimum and solar maximum. This phenomenon will reach its peak in 2025, during the maximum phase.
“When we are in the minimum part of the solar cycle, the Sun is very calm, basically nothing happens”said Taylor Cameron, a scientist with the Risk Information Service of Canada. “And then at the maximum, we have a lot of solar flares, a lot of coronal mass ejections. The Sun is much more active”.
The increased visibility of the aurora, created by activity in the sun’s magnetic field, has already begun, said Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University.
The northern lights are created when the solar wind or charged particles from the Sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field, exciting atoms in the atmosphere.
The electrons jump to a higher energy level and release light—seen as auroras—as they settle back down, he explained. Oxygen in the atmosphere creates green or red light during an aurora, while nitrogen causes blue.
In general, the auroras are most easily seen in places like the Scandinavian countries and northern Canada. But in recent months in the northern hemisphere, viewers have seen auroras in southern England and Ireland, as far south in the United States as North Carolina, New York, Arizona and central California, and southern Ontario. in Canada.
The best seasons to see the aurora are spring and fall, close to the equinoxes.
“That is the same time that the equator is completely flat with the plane of the Sun’s rotation.said William Archer, mission scientist for the Canadian Space Agency.
Experts recommend using SpaceWeather.com and SpaceWeatherLive.com as resources to find the lights.
The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks provides forecasts for North America, Europe and the Southern Hemisphere, where the lights are called aurora australis and where visibility has also increased.
Trips to see them involve finding the perfect view, said Amy Hope of the Aurora Zone, a tourism company in Britain.
Since the visibility window was expanded, Hope has received messages from friends in Scandinavia who have seen the lights from their homes.
Even during solar maximum, tour groups will seek out the best view.
“What’s so addictive about it — for lack of a better word — is that it’s different every time,” Hope said.
APRIL RUBIN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6725617, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-05-22 22:10:07
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