Rare auroras light up sky
A moderate geomagnetic storm kicked up in skies beginning the early hours of April 20, bringing green and rare electric-blue auroras that stretched from Washington to Maine, with sightings as far south as Illinois and Indiana.
Often, geomagnetic storms are caused by solar flares or coronal mass ejections, when the sun releases large bursts of radiation. This storm was caused by a high-speed stream of particles flowing out of a hole in the sun's outer atmosphere, called corona.
The interplanetary shock wave hit Earth's magnetic field, quadrupling the intensity of solar windwhich is the flow of particles streaming from the sun towards Earth. This resulted in the geomagnetic storm.
Such storms can cause power grid fluctuations and impact radio communications besides causing enhanced auroras. Higher amounts of radiation also leave people vulnerable to cancer.
"I've been flying airplanes for 20 years and
photographing aurora for 10 years, but I've never seen anything like this before," reports pilot Matt Melnyk who clicked some hasty photographs of the electric-blue auroras on a flight.
An eyewitness, Thomas Spence, says, "The lights danced from sunrise to sunset." Another eyewitness Philip Granrud says, "We could see auroras for most of the night."