Northern Lights to be visible in parts of Scotland tonight | Tech News

Parts of Scotland will see the Northern Lights tonight.

The spectacular sights come during periods of heightened solar activity, with a coronal hole opening this week and sending superfast solar winds blowing toward Earth.

When these winds collide with our planet’s charged atmosphere during so-called solar storms, it’s what creates the aurora, which typically remain in regions close to the North Pole.

A particularly powerful solar storm helped skywatchers last month Shows as far south as Kent and Cornwall.

Please use Chrome for a more accessible video player

February: Northern Lights over England

Hospitality won’t be as common on Thursday night, but the Met Office is predicting it will be the case in Scotland.

They might also last until Friday night.

Christa Hammond, from the Met Office’s Space Weather Operations Centre, said: “Small solar storms are possible on Thursday and Friday night, meaning auroras are possible across northern Scotland under clear skies.

“Because this is a fairly minor solar storm, the aurora is not expected to be farther south this time around.”

But if you missed it, don’t worry, we’re in “peak solar activity” as experts say – and the auroras are far more likely.

These events occur every 11 years or so.

read more:
The sun is ‘waking up’ — here’s why and what you need to know
Astronomers discover supermassive black hole about 33 billion times the mass of the sun

This is a sign of a more active Sun and is associated with more important phenomena such as a large number of coronal holes and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

Daniel Verscharen, associate professor of space and climate physics at UCL, told Sky News it was like the sun was “waking up”.

Source link