High latitude observers treated with spectacular aurora June 8 and June 9th.
The CME that glanced Earth’s magnetosphere on June 7 started a minor geomagnetic disturbance just after the impact that grew into a G1 then G2 level geomagnetic storm on NOAA’s scale of G1 – G5.
Aurora are most commonly observed as a green yellow glow, which is due to excited Oxygen. Sometimes we also see red (from Oxygen and Nitrogen) and blue/purple (from Nitrogen). During late June 8 and early morning June 9, the skies over Canada and the northern US were aglow with green and purple aurora.
Click on an image below to view larger.
The green aurora come from Oxygen atoms between 100 km and 150 km. The purple lights are from Nitrogen molecules at higher latitudes, generally above 400 km.
The images shown in the above gallery were taken by Zoltan Kenwell and Alan Dyer in Alberta, Canada and shared through spaceweather.com.
