Fantastic displays
More from my brother, on the solar storm and the northern lights. MSNBC:
Skywatchers as far south as Texas were treated to blazing sky lights, the aurora borealis generated by the first storm.
The aurora occurs when high-speed particles, accelerated locally as the storm’s magnetism interacts with the geomagnetic sphere, race down Earth’s magnetic field lines toward the poles.
Sometimes all the colors combine for fantastic displays.
Also called the northern or southern lights, the phenomenon is normally visible only from very high latitudes such as Finland or Alaska. Forecasters expect auroras to reach well south — perhaps again into many U.S. states and European countries — off-and-on for the rest of the week and possibly through the weekend.
Posted by jghiii at October 31, 2003 01:09 PM