New Year's Eve Nothern Lights Show May Happen Tonight

The solar flare actually caused an ionization event, which caused a radio blackout over South America, Africa and the south Atlantic Ocean. When a coronal mass ejection reaches the planet's magnetic field, it produces a brilliant light show known as an aurora. Owing to which, space weather forecasters have predicted about some natural fireworks. Only the biggest, meanest CME's from the sun create auroras for Ohio.

Writing for SpaceWeather.com, Tony Phillips from NASA stated that the Sunspot AR 2374 presents an unstable "beta-gamma" magnetic field which could explode yet again in the hours to come.

NOAA predicts the effects of the storm could linger into New Year's Day, which is now forecast to have a minor G1 geomagnetic storm warning.

If we are lucky and the storm is strong enough and lasts until entering our planet's upper atmosphere we could witness another cosmic show, the last of this year after being sure the full moon on Christmas was going to be the last sky event of the year.

Flares and CMEs are different, but triggered by the same magnetic phenomenon.

Coronal mass ejections, also called CMEs, are large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun.

It's certainly possible (...) It depends entirely on the strength of the storm. The storm will create a strong possibility for you to see Aurora borealis tonight.

While the most spectacular views were undoubtedly from Iceland, people captured glimpses of nature's light show from all over the world.

Auroras are footprints of the Sun-Earth sometimes violent interactions. They are ionized or excited by the collision of particles precipitated into the atmosphere. Flares are also sites where particles (electrons, protons, and heavier particles) are accelerated. According to Space Weather Prediction Center, this won't be a nationwide viewing opportunity.

A quiescent solar wind flowing past the Earth's magnetosphere steadily interacts with it and can both inject solar wind particles directly onto the geomagnetic field lines that are "open", as opposed to being "closed" in the opposite hemisphere, and provide diffusion through the bow shock.

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