14 DAY TRIAL // About a week ago, some seriously cool auroras formed in the sky above the UK. Since such displays of light and color are usually confined to our planet's polar regions, people were quite amazed by the unexpected show.
As explained at the time, the surprise auroras formed because of high-speed solar winds reaching our planet and delivering high-energy particles to its atmosphere. Thanks to NASA, we now also know where these solar winds came from.
This past Wednesday, the space agency released a new and positively stunning image of our parent star, the Sun. The image, available below, was obtained by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched back in February 2010.
In the description accompanying the image, NASA scientists explain that the solar winds that created those gorgeous auroras a few days ago originated from the dark area visible on the surface of the Sun in this Observatory view of the star.
“The dark area across the top of the Sun in this image is a coronal hole, a region on the Sun where the magnetic field is open to interplanetary space, sending coronal material speeding out in what is called a high-speed solar wind stream.”
“The high-speed solar wind originating from this coronal hole, imaged here on October 10, 2015, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, created a geomagnetic storm near Earth that resulted in several nights of auroras,” they write.
What with the Sun being especially moody these days, researchers expect that more solar winds will head our way and so auroras will once again form over regions where they are not usually seen.
