Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, the Northern Lights were visible across Pennsylvania.
If you missed this sight, no worries, according to Weather Action more opportunities may come from now to 2026 due to the maximum solar cycle of the sun; a process of change in the sun’s magnitude.
There was no guarantee the lights would be seen by the naked eye, so everyone’s best bet was to look at the sky through a camera lens. Those in polluted areas likely had a harder time seeing the lights.
“It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” admitted teacher Ashley Krause, “but to really experience it you had to take a picture which is what I think people didn’t know.”
As explained by Canada.ca, the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are created when the Sun’s charged particles are blasted into space. This is called the solar wind which is redirected by the Earth’s magnetic field around the planet. The Earth’s magnetic field protects us from these winds which are stretched around before snapping “back like an elastic band, launching charged particles down towards Earth’s surface along the magnetic field lines.”
When these chain of events lead to charged particles crashing into gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere, the Northern Lights are created.
It’s easier to see these lights during the winter when the sky is darker and when the Sun is more active. The lights are most commonly seen in Canada and Alaska.
“I only got to see the light red aftermath of the lights. I didn’t even know that was possible,” expressed Kiara Camacho, 25′.
The first sighting of the Aurora Borealis dates back to 2600 BC when writing in a cave located in China contained records of the changing of colors in the sky as stated by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
So if you looked at the sky on Oct. 10 and saw hues of pink, green, blue, purple, yellow, or a million other colors, you may have been looking up at the Northern Lights.
Submit your own photos here!
