The northern lights would light up the skies across several parts of the United States on Monday due to a geomagnetic storm, according to space and weather experts.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a geometric storm watch that could produce auroras — described as the “light show after the storm in space” — in 18 U.S. states.
The geometric storm is caused by the “anticipated arrival of the symmetric full-halo Coronal Mass Ejection,” which is the “eruption of solar material and magnetic fields,” according to NOAA.
People in states like Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, South Dakota, Michigan, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Idaho, Alaska, Oregon, New York, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming and Wisconsin could all see the northern lights on Monday, according to NOAA’s aurora viewline map.
The lights will be most visible “from just after sunset or just before sunrise,” NOAA said.
Auroras, which are known as the northern and southern lights, are “colorful and dynamic displays that glow in the night sky” that appear in the upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, according to NASA.
“Occasionally, during explosions called coronal mass ejections, the Sun releases charged particles that speed across the solar system. When too much energy is pent up, the magnetic field lines swap and release energetic particles that follow magnetic field lines to rain down on Earth’s poles. When they strike atoms in the atmosphere, the energetic particles cause the atoms to glow, creating auroras,” according to NASA.
According to NASA, even if the northern lights are not be visible to the naked eye, digital camera sensors “allow you to record across auroras.”
Some people may not be able to see the aurora due to cloudy skies or a location that is not dark enough, NASA said.
