Your web browser (Internet Explorer) is out of date. Some things will not look right and things might not work properly. Please download an up-to-date and free browser from here.

Spectacular aurora over NZ tonight

By Paul Harper, nzherald.co.nz — Those in the south of New Zealand should be able to see spectacular aurora lights tonight as the largest solar flare in five years reaches Earth.

Astronomer Dr Grant Christie from the Stardome Observatory said the particles from the solar flare should reach the earth around midnight, New Zealand time.

“The actual flare occurred yesterday. It blew off quite a lot of material off the sun. That’s called a coronal mass ejection. Typically they weigh about 10 million tonnes of material. That goes out into space with a lot of force like a shotgun blast and satellites up there now monitoring the sun can monitor its trajectory in three dimensions.

“It’s going to be a glancing blow to the earth.”

Dr Christie said it is a class X5.4 flare, the strongest in more than five years.

An X1.3 flare occurred soon after the yesterday’s X5.4. A solar flare on January 27 was a X1.7 flare.

“This one is quite a lot stronger than the one in January,” he said.

“Any class X flare has got potential hazard to satellites, power grids, and aircraft navigation near the poles. So there are alerts out for that.”

He said satellite operators will be rotating their satellites so that the hard back-end of the satellite is facing the sun to shield the electronics from the particles.

Dr Christie said the flare will only have an effect on flights over either of the poles.

“I understand airlines simply redirect those flights to avoid the hazard. The impact it has is not so much the radiation on passengers, it’s the possibility of electronic disruptions to communications and navigations.”

“Because the earth’s magnetic field channels high energy particles onto the polar regions, which is why you see the aurora at the poles, there is much more intense electrical disruption at the polar regions than there are in our regions.

“Therefore the polar regions are where you expect to see more activity and therefore increased hazard.”

Anywhere south of Auckland people should be able to see enhanced aurora over the next couple of nights.

“To actually get a good view anywhere in south Otago, Southland, Canterbury … the further south you are the better. In Auckland you see the very top of the aurora, it’s so far south a strong one will just peak over the horizon, it will look like a red glow in the south. As you get further south you will see colours like green appearing.

“It is a full moon as well so that will dim the impact.”

Dr Christie said a big sun spot group, named AR1429, was the source of the solar flares.

“It’s large, it’s something like 10 times the size the earth would project … nearly the size of Jupiter.

“You should be able to see it if you have the right sort of filter. I wouldn’t encourage people to do it, but you can get safe solar viewers, from places like Stardome and the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand.”

“It’s not to say this will be the last flare, it’s still possible there will be another eruption.”

– nzherald.co.nz

Comments

Tony W on 8/03/2012 11:42am

how far south of auckland would you have to be to start seeing it?

Karl on 8/03/2012 9:51am

wow lived in west auckland all my life and never have i seen a moon like that before..it has a huge rainbow ring around it that changes size and width while u watch it..its amazing..

Guest on 8/03/2012 8:46am

Palmerston North – sunset had a green colour at the horizon. Never seen anything like it. Only lasted about 5 minutes. Wondering whether it had something to do with the CME.

Guest on 8/03/2012 11:39pm

My best guess would be dust causing the green-ness, not the CME unfortunately. You’d have to look south and I think Palmy might have just been on the upper limits of where you could see the aurora from for this particular event. The magnetic field appears to be doing its job well; sadly this means that the aurora isn’t as bright as it could be, because this particular flare that caused it was quite large. The sunspot that caused it might still let off more big flares so I wouldn’t be too disappointed. PS I follow space weather and stuff as an amateur, I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination 😀

Related Articles