Northern Lights could be incoming midweek after the first powerful X-rated solar flare for many weeks. Satellites in Earth orbit detected an X2.2 class solar flare early on Dec. 8, 2024, which could translate to aurora borealis in a few days — if there’s an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection in its wake.
The explosive action on the sun comes after a lull in our star’s magnetic activity.
Northern Lights: Coronal Mass Ejections
Displays of aurora around Earth are caused by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the sun that interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.
The solar wind is super-charged by coronal mass ejections, clouds of charged particles that are often unleashed from the same sunspots that produce solar flares. CMEs can take a few days to Earth over a few days.
Northern Lights: Magnetic Activity
Although it came after a quiet period on the sun, Sunday’s X flare is exactly what solar physicists expected. According to Spaceweather.com, solar activity has been low for more than a week, but was expected to change this weekend because of a sunspot called 3917, which has been increasing in size and becoming increasingly complex. More X-flares are possible next week because there are two sunspots with unstable magnetic fields, stated the website.
