Polar auroras, wonders left by the solar storm

Paris and Mexico City. The powerful solar storm manifested itself this weekend on the planet, a day after the most energetic events in two decades unleashed spectacular polar auroras visible from Great Britain to Mexico, Argentina and Chile, threatening outages in satellite communications. and in electrical networks.

The first of several ejections of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun began shortly after 4:00 p.m. GMT on Friday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States.

NOAA classified the geomagnetic storm as extremaas it is the most powerful since October 2003, when several plasma explosions from the solar corona caused blackouts in Sweden and damage to energy infrastructure in South Africa.

On the night of Friday and Saturday, social networks were filled with photos of auroras captured in northern Europe and in Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand in the southern hemisphere, and the phenomenon is expected to continue in the coming days.

In Mexico, specifically in the desert city of Mexicali, thousands of kilometers from the arctic regions where the northern lights are common, gradients of pink and purple illuminated the night sky, a phenomenon that spread to the states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Zacatecas.

They will appear today

More Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are expected to manifest on the planet on Sunday as well.

We just woke up the kids to see the Northern Lights in the backyard! It is visible to the naked eyesaid Iain Mansfield, a political adviser based in Hertford, United Kingdom.

I have the feeling of living a historic night in Franceindicated Eric Lagadec, astrophysicist at the Côte d’Azur Observatory, on the social network X.

Authorities asked satellite operators, airlines and power grid managers to take precautionary measures against possible disturbances caused by changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

The US Civil Aviation Agency (FAA) stated that no significant consequences expected regarding air traffic.

Come out tonight and look

An effect that amazed people around the world were the polar lights – known as the aurora borealis or australis, depending on the hemisphere – in latitudes where they are not usually visible.

Mathew Owens, professor of space physics at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom, explained to Afp ​​that the effects are visible mainly in the northern and southern latitudes of the planet and that the exact extent will depend on the power of the storm. My advice is to go outside tonight and look, because if you see an aurora, it is something spectacular..

The largest solar storm in historical records was the so-called Carrington eventwhich occurred in 1859, which destroyed the telegraph network in the United States.