Gorgeous Aurora captured by Martin McKenna!
Purple Pillars and Green Auroral Glow over the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland captured by Martin McKenna and shared through spaceweather.com
Last night’s geomagnetic storm (April 24, 2012) put on quite a show and this was not even a large event. This is near the childhood homes of some of our esteemed Irish solar physics colleagues! I can’t think of a more appropriate place than the Giant’s Causeway to see these spectacular lights.
From Martin to spaceweather.com, “Hi Tony My girlfriend and I went aurora hunting to the Co. Antrim coast after seeing your alert and that mid lats were on red alert. The aurora we saw was sublime!, the best I have seen here since 2005 with vertical green pillars of light some 60 degrees high accompanied by amazing pulsating/flamming motions like the beating of a heart which was jaw dropping. We could even see the beams reflecting on the ocean forming their own glitter paths – what a night!! Canon 450D, 18mm, ISO1600.” credit: Martin McKenna and spaceweather.com.
Click on an image below to view larger.
This geomagnetic activity was most likely from the passage of a CME (coronal mass ejection) that was observed on April 19, 2012. This was actually 3 CMEs so the impact could be due to 1 or all of them.The resulting CME passage of Earth produced geomagnetic fluctuations with a Kp index of 6 giving a geomagnetic storm level of G2 on a scale of G1-G5.
