Posted on 11/06/2023 12:08:51 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: What was that red glow on the horizon last night? Aurora. Our unusually active Sun produced a surface explosion a few days ago that sent out a burst of electrons, protons, and more massive charged nuclei. This coronal mass ejection (CME) triggered auroras here on Earth that are being reported unusually far south in Earth's northern hemisphere. For example, this was the first time that the astrophotographer captured aurora from her home country of Italy. Additionally, many images from these auroras appear quite red in color. In the featured image, the town of Comelico Superiore in the Italian Alps is visible in the foreground, with the central band of our Milky Way galaxy seen rising from the lower left. What draws the eye the most, though, is the bright red aurora on the far right. The featured image is a composite with the foreground and background images taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
I remember seeing this, I think it was the early 1990s, and it was spectacular.
Clouded over this time.
Happened in N. Nevada around 10 years ago. Red glow to the north.
Interesting.
If the Moon ever takes on that particular hue, we're all in trouble.
EarthSky Solar Flare Aurora Updates
Below: Taken in Canada. see link for article on the orange color.
GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2): NOAA forcasters say there is a chance of G2-class geomagnetic storms today, Nov. 7th, when the subsiding effects of Sunday's CME might overlap with an incoming solar wind stream. Earth's magnetosphere is already humming with G1-class activity, and it won't take much to push it across the threshold to G2. Aurora alerts: SMS Text
EARTH'S RING CURRENT JUST SPRANG A LEAK: During this weekend's strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude auroras spread as far south as Texas and Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all. Everything red in these photos is an "SAR":
"This was a new phenomenon to me," says Jeremy Perez, who took the Arizona photo. "I had never heard of SARs before, but I kept shooting anyway."
SARs were discovered in 1956 at the beginning of the Space Age. Researchers didn't know what they were and unwittingly gave them a misleading name: "Stable Auroral Red arcs" or SARs. In fact, SARs are neither stable nor auroras.
Auroras appear when charged particles rain down from space, hitting the atmosphere and causing it to glow. SARs form differently. They are a sign of heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere from Earth's ring current system–a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet.
"On Nov. 5th, the ring current was pumped up for hours by the geomagnetic storm, with energy dissipating into these SAR arcs," says Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University's Center for Space Physics. "It was a global event. Our cameras registered SAR activity from Italy to New Zealand."
Recent research has linked SARs to another phenomenon that is not an aurora: STEVE. The mauve ribbon in the sky was not originally thought to have anything to do with Earth's ring current. Yet in 2015, observers in New Zealand caught a bright red SAR transforming itself into STEVE.
Mark Savage may have seen the same thing happen on Nov 5th when an SAR apparently gave birth to STEVE over of Northumberland, UK: "The entire process took about 10 minutes," says Savage. This roughly matches the timescale of an SAR-to-STEVE transition observed over Canada in April 2022.
"The connection between STEVE and SARs is still elusive," cautions Carlos Martinis, a leading researcher in the field at Boston University. "Sometimes SARs evolve into STEVE--but not always. This is a very active field of research, involving citizen scientists and researchers."
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