Ready for the Aurora?

The recent solar activity can give us the opportunity to see the Northern Lights in latitudes more to the south than usual.

Last Wednesday, September 6th, the Sun had two big flares ejecting a lot of material through space. The dynamics of the interior of the Sun is not yet fully understood. We know that the activity increases and decreases in periods of 11 years. We are now leaving a minimum of activity. Last week we could see a couple of big spots on the surface of the Sun, indicating activity. The spots that the Sun present are regions of lower temperature (~4000K versus ~6000K). They are due to the flux of material in the inside of the Sun due to the interaction of intense magnetic fields and important gradients of temperature. The core of the Sun is at about 10 million degrees while the surface is at about 6000 degrees.

This week two big flares have been ejected from the Sun. This flares are energetic particles that the Sun emits, basically protons and electrons, that travel at high speeds and can reach the Earth in about two days. This gives us some small time to forecast its effects on our atmosphere.

When these energetic particles reach the Earth they interact with the molecules of the atmosphere, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon. This interaction ends up emitting light of different color (reddish and greenish), depending on the molecule they interact with.