| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Green and Red Auroras Light Up St. Patrick’s Day Dawn
A wall of colorful red and green aurora met the eye and camera of Jim Schaff of Duluth this morning around 3 a.m. CDT. Schaff said the colors were easy to see with the naked eye. Details: 16mm at f/2.8, ISO 1600 approx. 10 sec. exposure.Credit: Jim Schaff
A strong G3 geomagetic storm surged across the planet this morning producing a spectacular display of the northern lights. Some of you may who may have risen to see the new nova were no doubt as surprised as the NOAA space weather folks, whose overnight forecast did not include an alert for even a minor storm.
So what happened? Let’s just say the Sun isn’t always as predictable as we’d like. An interplanetary shock wave in the form of a sudden increase in the solar wind speed from 250 miles per second to 375 mph (400-600 km/sec) began blasting Earth shortly before midnight. Close examination of the data point to the cause as the combined effects of earlier coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and an outpouring of high-speed solar particles from an open gas in the Sun’s magnetic canopy called a coronal hole.
More auroras are expected tonight.(…)
Read the rest of Green and Red Auroras Light Up St. Patrick’s Day Dawn (767 words)
© Bob King for Universe Today, 2015. |
Permalink |
No comment |
Post tags: ACE, aurora, Bz, K-index, northern light, oval, solar wind
Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/119424/green-and-red-auroras-light-up-st-patricks-day-dawn/
