Skygazers in North America are in for a rare light display this week as an incoming “solar storm” will make the northern lights, typically only seen in the Arctic, visible across part of the country.
The Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch this week, in which there is the potential for an aurora borealis to be seen Wednesday and Thursday in across portions of the country including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.
The brilliant northern lights display is caused when collisions by electrically charged particles from the sun enter the atmosphere, according to Canada’s North Lights Centre. The lights, known as the aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere and the aurora australis in the southern hemisphere, are usually visible around each of earth’s magnetic poles.
“While SWPC forecasters are fairly confident in CME (coronal mass injection) arrival at Earth, timing and geomagnetic storm intensity are less certain,” the agency said in its forecast.
The best way to view the spectacle, if in its path, is to look north when it’s dark. The lights can be seen in an array of prismatic colors in the form of arcs, streams or shooting rays.