Thousands of Colorado residents took to social media on Thursday night and on Friday morning to share their views of the aurora borealis (northern lights) that were visible with the naked eye. Thousands of images flooded social media from around the state showing how bright the lights were.
The northern lights typically are not visible as far south as the Colorado Front Range. However, Shawn Dahl with the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center said this was the result of a burst from the sun that took place earlier in the week.
“We had a massive geomagnetic storm. This magnetic disturbance around our planet that hits severe levels,” Dahl said. “That is also what excites to life the aurora everyone is talking about from last night.”
Coronal mass ejection (CME) is the burst that sent molecules toward Earth. Those bursts take two or more days to reach our planet.
“It is basically explosions from the sun heading out into space in the form of these energetic particles from the sun,” Dahl said. “They excite to life all the molecules that already exist up there and emit light. That is what we see as the aurora.”