People couldn’t believe their eyes as they took in the magnificent colors lighting up the sky. But, not everyone was pleased about this celestial event. The folks who missed out turned to memes to cope with their feelings. CMEs are giant clouds of solar particles that escape from the Sun and are laced with plasma and magnetic fields. They can take hours or several days to reach the Earth, and when they do, they can set the aurora alight. This happens because the particles strike the gases present in the Earth’s atmosphere and heat them up, causing them to start glowing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides weather forecasts and severe storm warnings, informed people early on that they were expecting a severe geomagnetic storm. They classify these storms on a “G” scale of 1 (minor) to 5 (extreme) and this one was classified as a G4. During this period, a large number of sunspots appear on the sun’s surface. Its magnetic field also flips completely, meaning that its North and South poles switch places. It takes another 11 years for them to flip back. Due to the sun’s high activity level and energetic magnetic field, people were lucky enough to witness the Northern lights. If such an intense storm occurred today, its effect could be catastrophic because of our heavy dependence on electricity. A geomagnetic storm of such proportions can affect everyday electrical appliances, damage satellites orbiting around Earth by burning out their circuit boards, and disrupt GPS navigation systems. You can predict a strong aurora night by counting forward 27 days from the most recent occurrence. This is because auroras are strongly associated with sunspot activity, and as it takes 27 days for the sun to rotate on its axis, that’s how long it will take for an aurora-producing sunspot to show up again. Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
