Skywatchers were treated to a stunning display on Wednesday evening as the southern lights were visible across much of Australia and New Zealand.
The southern aurora that lit up the sky was the result of a so-called “cannibal” solar storm.
On social media, northern lights viewers have been sharing images from across the country, as far away as Port Macquarie in N.S.W..
A storm over Australia, driven by powerful bursts of solar energy, reached “G4 geomagnetic storm conditions” over Australia on Wednesday, the Bureau of Meteorology said. space weather forecasting center.
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In the UK, local activity reached a G5 rating early on Wednesday UK time – the top of the geomagnetic storm scale – according to the British Geological Survey (BGS).
Dr Laura Driessen from the Sydney Institute Astronomy said that at the moment there is “a really strong and magnetically active spot on the Sun.”
Since November 9, the Sun has released two strong coronal mass ejections towards the Earth – bursts of high-energy plasma.
“They happened on two different occasions, on the ninth and the 10th,” Driessen said. “Basically, the one on the 10th was a little faster, so he caught up with the one on the ninth.”
This was reported to BGS. CNN: “The second caught up with the first, and by the time they reached Earth, they merged into one. Hence the term “cannibalized”, since the second absorbed the first.”
The double blow of a cannibalistic solar storm led to the largest induced geoelectric field will be recorded in the UK since BGS recording began in 2012.
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According to BGS, the electric field on the Earth's surface can arise from solar storms and create electrical currents that can damage transformers on the power grid.
The US also delayed the launch of two NASA spacecraft heading to Mars. Blue Origin, the space technology company behind the mission's launch vehicle, said in a post on X: “Due to high solar activity and its potential impact on the ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA is delaying the launch until space weather conditions improve.”
The Northern Lights, also known as the Northern Lights, have also been visible in Northern Hemisphere.
Auroras occur as a result of disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field, known as the magnetosphere.
“You're seeing charged particles falling into the Earth's magnetic field and essentially tunneling along some of our magnetic field lines and interacting with the gases and dust that we have in our atmosphere,” said Dr Sarah Webb, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University.
