The Northern Lights will set Scotland’s skies aglow this week after stunning displays were spotted last night. You don’t have to travel to Iceland or Alaska to see one of the most stunning natural displays in the world as experts at the Met Office is predicting “enhanced auroral displays” over the next few days. It comes after skygazers in Scotland were treated to breathtaking green, pink and purple aurora borealis on Monday night thanks to increased solar activity and clear skies.
The Met Office said the display this week is due to a coronal mass ejection (CME) – a huge expulsion of plasma from the sun’s outer layer. Defined as a type of ‘solar storm’, this particular CME left the sun on Saturday, September 16 and hit the Earth’s system of magnetic fields, causing the aurora.
According to the Met Office, the aurora will be visible on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night this week for those who missed out on last night’s atmospheric light show. “The coming three-day period is likely to see some enhanced auroral displays at high geomagnetic latitudes, with aurora perhaps visible overhead for northern Scotland to start Tuesday following recent CME (coronal mass ejection) arrival,” forecasters said.
“Activity could extend overnight into early Wednesday, though conditions unfortunately look unfavourable for prolonged clear skies for most regions at present.” The display should be visible across Scotland and even as far south as northern England, however, cloud could possible obstruct clear views of it
The aurora process begins after solar flares – eruptions on the sun – blast billions of tons of radiation out into space. These atomic particles hit the Earth’s atmosphere about two days after they’ve blasted off the sun, and some are caught in the Earth’s magnetic field, and drawn towards the North and South poles. There, they slam into the atoms and molecules that make up various gases in the atmosphere, creating the northern lights ’ characteristic vibrant colours as they collide.
And while there’s never any guarantee you’ll see the spectacular natural light show, the coming equinox – on September 23 – could give you a better chance than normal of witnessing it, because of conditions in the Earth’s magnetic field and the tilt of the planet at that time, explains David Moore, editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine. “If the sun’s very quiet that day, then we’re not going to get the aurora, but even if there’s a modest explosion on the sun during the equinox, it can lead to a display of the aurora,” he says. “The equinox increases the chances, rather than guarantees you seeing it.”
Source: DAILY RECORD
