The Northern Lights can be seen in the US today

The beautiful green, purple and red colors of the aurora borealis may be visible from the northern parts of the upper Midwest tonight thanks to the sun’s jet hitting Earth.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SPWC) has issued a G1 geomagnetic storm watch for June 4 in anticipation of a coronal mass ejection (CME) ejected from the sun that will impact our planet’s magnetic field.

G1 geomagnetic storms can result in the northern lights being seen as far south as northern Michigan and Maine.

“A coronal mass ejection is an eruption of solar material. When it reaches Earth, a geomagnetic storm can occur,” SWPC said in a report. “The CME that left the Sun on June 1 may begin affecting Earth’s atmosphere on June 4.”

“The aurora borealis may become visible along the northern tier horizon and far north in the upper midwestern states.”

G1 Watch for Tuesday June 4th…

CMEs are huge clouds of solar plasma and magnetic field that are ejected from the sun, usually from magnetically active regions such as sunspots, and are often accompanied by solar flares.

If the Earth is in the path of a CME, it can reach our planet within one to three days, depending on the speed of the ejection. When a CME hits Earth’s magnetosphere, it can cause geomagnetic storms due to its interaction with our planet’s magnetic field.

Geomagnetic storms are ranked on a scale from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme), which means the storm hitting us tonight is the weakest type. There are about 1,700 G1 storms per 11-year solar cycle, while stronger G4s occur only about 100 times per cycle and G5 storms are seen only about four times per cycle.

The G5 geomagnetic storm that hit Earth on May 10 triggered an aurora that was visible in all 50 US states and as far south as Mexico, and was the first recorded since 2003.

“The strength of a solar storm is rated on a scale that is analogous to the scale of hurricanes,” said Roger Dube, a physics professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Newsweek.

“Earth’s magnetic field causes charged particles to spiral around the polar regions as they move, increasing the likelihood of collisions with molecules in the atmosphere. These collisions involve the emission of light of various colors, creating colorful atmospheric showers called the Northern Lights.”

According to the SWPC, G1 storms can lead to weak fluctuations in the power grid and minor impacts on satellites. Stronger storms have a much greater impact on our planet and our infrastructure: G5 storms can cause voltage management problems so widespread that transformers can be damaged, and satellites can require more frequent orbit adjustments due to increased atmospheric drag.

The strongest geomagnetic storm in recorded history was the Carrington event of 1859, which caused fires in telegraph offices.

“In the strongest Carrington event ever, there were reports of telegraph lines sparking with induced voltage,” Alan Woodward, a computer science professor and space weather expert at the University of Surrey in the UK, previously told Newsweek.

“If this happened today, you can imagine how dependent we are on electronic equipment and how disruptive it is to Earth.”

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