Why Are We Seeing ‘The Northern Lights’ So Often Right Now?
Did you happen to catch the latest light show Mother Nature put on last week?
The Northern Lights lit up the night sky throughout the Sioux Empire again Thursday (October 10) as millions of people all over the world were privy once again to the Aurora Borealis.
The Northern Lights have been on full display this year because the sun is approaching the maximum in its solar cycle.
Dakota News Now reports the solar maximum is the peak of the sunspot activity during the sun's eleven-year cycle.
A solar cycle tracks the sun’s activity and specifically monitors sunspots on the surface. Sunspots are darker and cooler areas with magnetic fields. When the magnetic fields are aligned correctly there are no solar flares, however, when they begin to become unstable, you end up getting explosions off the sun’s surface and that’s known as a solar flare.
According to the Dakota News Now story, the Northern Lights are created if the energy from those eruptions follows Earth’s magnetic field and interacts with other elements in Earth’s atmosphere.
Once that happens, the result ends up being all those spectacular Red, Blue, Green, Pink, and Purple lights we've been witnessing on so many occasions so far this year.
Your chances of seeing the Northern Lights increase around the solar maximum, and a solar maximum happens when there is more sunspot activity.
As Dakota News Now reports back in July, there were around 220 sunspots, compared to 141 last month in September.
Here's some good news if you're a fan of Mother Nature's celestial light shows, experts say the solar maximum is expected to peak between 2024 and 2026 before reverting to a solar minimum again.
So, as long as the sun stays near solar maximum, there should be plenty more opportunities for you to experience the Northern Lights in the coming months.
Better get your camera ready.
Source: Dakota News Now
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