The Northern Lights made a rare appearance across southern Illinois Tuesday night.
This is a rare event according to Bob Baer, the Director of SIU's public astronomy observation program. The lights are normally visible at points further north, but during Tuesday's event, the lights were seen as far south as Texas.
The Northern Lights are caused when the sun experiences a coronal mass ejection sending particles out into space. These solar flares sometimes head towards earth entering the atmosphere.
Baer explains, "The one that we saw last night was the result in X-class solar fire. We've had three of those just over the last week, actually, and that's why we're seeing this activity this week."
Baer says we've experienced sightings like this 2 or three times over the past few years because the sun is in an active period with more solar flares. But astronomers believe the sun is headed towards a period of less activity.
These solar flares can affect communications networks and the power grid on earth. But Baer says those impacts on earth are rare. However, there are concerns regarding communications satellites in orbit around the earth, "They're out in space, so they don't get protected as much as we do by the Earth's magnetic field and, of course, the atmosphere. And what it does to those is it can cause them to degrade. It can actually cause damage to some of those space-based systems."
Baer is leading a team of citizen volunteers recording solar flares like this. They'll share the data with NASA so they can watch the flares evolve, learning more about how they work.
If you'd like the current space weather forecast, go to: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
