Did you catch the new year’s auroral show?
From cities across the world, fireworks were the spectacular sight. But near the poles, nature was the star of the show.
“You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.” -James Thomson
Celebrating the dawn of a new year usually consists of music, cheers and a spectacular light show. Typically, we make our own on Earth, through the chemical reactions of fireworks, light bulbs and other run-of-the-mill displays. But if you happened to be located at high latitudes on either side of the world — at higher than about 45 (or especially 50) degrees in either hemisphere — you just might have seen the best show of all if you head away from any artificial light sources, to a dark sky location.
On December 28th, the Sun let out a coronal mass ejection, where material from the outer layers of the Sun’s hot plasma gets ejected into interplanetary space. These ejections most commonly occur at or near the Sun’s equator, and can randomly go in any direction. While almost all such ejections miss our planet entirely, every once in a while, we’re oriented just right so that these particles…
