A strong geomagnetic storm hits the earth and illuminates the skies of some countries with the lights of the Northern Lights

Weather of Arabia - A coronal mass emission (a cloud of ionized gas) reached the Earth's magnetic field yesterday, causing a strong geomagnetic storm of category (G4), which resulted in seeing the lights of the aurora borealis, which spread in several US states and parts of Canada and Europe. Bright red aurorae have also been reported in China, SpaceWeather reported ( sapceweather ).

A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance in the magnetosphere that surrounds the Earth due to the collision of the solar wind and its interaction with the Earth's magnetic field.

As for the aurora borealis, it is a temporary atmospheric phenomenon that lasts for a period of time, depending on the strength of the geomagnetic storm and its duration.

As for the reason for the different colors that we see in the pictures of the aurora lights, it is due to the nature of the Earth’s atmosphere, which consists of different gases such as oxygen and nitrogen.

And when the charged particles coming from the sun hit the atoms and molecules in the earth's atmosphere, those atoms are excited to give light, and the different atoms give different colors, and most importantly, the height plays an important role in the color.

Oxygen about 60 miles above us gives off the familiar yellowish-green light. Oxygen at an altitude about 200 miles higher gives off a red light, ionic nitrogen gives off a blue light, and natural nitrogen gives off a red-violet light.

If the atmosphere contained other gases such as neon gas or sodium gas, we would see red, orange and yellow aurora lights.

The geomagnetic storm is still ongoing and is producing the aurora borealis visible across North America, including sightings in the mid-latitudes of North Carolina, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, California and Oklahoma.

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