A geomagnetic storm produced a dazzling aurora borealis over the Northern Hemisphere on Sunday night, providing a vivid Northern Lights display as far south as North Carolina, New Mexico and Arizona.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center said severe geomagnetic storms were underway on Sunday afternoon and rated them a level four out of five on the Geomagnetic Storm Impact Scale.
Vivid Northern Lights displays usually follow a few days after solar events known as coronal mass ejections or solar flares. The flares bring a barrage of electrons that interact with oxygen and nitrogen in Earth’s magnetic field that surrounds the outside of our planet.
“The production of the colors is very similar to what you see in a neon sign,” said Don Hampton, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “It’s basically just an electrical current.”
Americans in more than two dozen states reported seeing the vivid Northern Lights display, and the image above shows the green, red and purple colors high above Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin.
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Another amazing photo snapped by Andrew Pritchard shows the Northern Lights lighting up the night sky high above Champaign County in Illinois on Sunday night.
The types of colors that the Northern Lights give off all depend on the kinds of gasses high up in the atmosphere.
Oxygen molecules give off a green or yellow glow when they are excited or sometimes can give off a bit of a red hue, according to NASA.
Meanwhile, nitrogen will give off blue hues when hit by solar energy.
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Another video recorded in Faribault, Minnesota, shows the Northern Lights in the distance, but the strength of the geomagnetic storm caused power lines to hum.
The strongest solar flares can bring aurora sightings farther south than typically observed, reaching California, Nevada and Texas.
The strongest solar flare ever recorded, known as the “Carrington Event” in 1859, was so intense that the Northern Lights were spotted in Cuba and Hawaii, according to NASA.
A time-lapse video recorded in the Canadian province of Manitoba shows the Northern Lights dancing across the night sky in South Indian Lake.