Dear Friends,
Did anyone catch the Aurora on Tuesday or Wednesday? Apparently, that was quite a solar storm! Not Carrington level, but still stronger than the Halloween storm of 2003, and likely strongest this century.
I find these solar ejections, and consequent storms, so very fascinating! Solar storms are a product of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME); I’ll quote NOAA directly.
“Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona. They can eject billions of tons of coronal material and carry an embedded magnetic field (frozen in flux) that is stronger than the background solar wind interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) strength. CMEs travel outward from the Sun at speeds ranging from slower than 250 kilometers per second (km/s) to as fast as near 3000 km/s.”
CMEs can cause space weather events on Earth, primarily in the form of Geomagnetic and Solar Radiation storms. These storms are rated on a scale, like how hurricanes are rated, on a scale of S1 through S5, and G1 through G5. Tuesday’s storm hit S4 and G4. Generally, space weather is not strong enough to be noticeable, but powerful storms can cause interference in radio and GPS signals, and bring the aurora down further south than usual. NASA explains auroras as follows:
“[Auroras]…are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares (explosions on the Sun) or coronal mass ejections (ejected gas bubbles). Energetic charged particles from these events are carried from the Sun by the solar wind.
“When these particles seep through Earth’s magnetosphere, they cause substorms. Then fast moving particles slam into our thin, high atmosphere, colliding with Earth’s oxygen and nitrogen particles. As these air particles shed the energy they picked up from the collision, each atom starts to glow in a different color.”
Auroras show in different colors; pinks, reds, greens; and on October 10th, 2024 we had an amazing show here in Damariscotta. I’ve included a picture above showing just how brilliant they can be. We are in the middle of the Solar Maximum right now, and I look forward to further aurora events here in Maine.
Be well, and keep looking up!
Matthew
Matthew Graff
Executive Director
Skidompha Public Library