• Environment

Sun storm creates Namibian Aurora Australis

• 2 Months Ago - 2024-05-13 09:13:00

These beautiful shades of read of the Southern Lights or Aurora Australis were taken at around midnight on Friday by Evelyn Yeo, a visitor from Singapore to Namibia, at the Etosha National Park. The aurora was caused by a "severe" G5 geomagnetic storm that reached Earth on Friday after several days of solar activity that sent many bursts of plasma and magnetic fields (CME) towards Earth. G5 is the highest level of a geomagnetic storm on a scale from G1 to G5. These solar storms are caused by charged particles from the sun, with the aurora being visible when small particles from the sun with an electric charge hit the atmosphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis appear. At lower latitudes, red auroras are more common because red occurs at higher altitudes and can be seen further away from the poles. The last G5 produced the Halloween Storms in October 2003, with the most powerful storm on record occurring in September 1859. It is known as the Carrington Event and is named after the British astronomer Richard Carrington. A severe G5 storm is extremely rare and occurs on average for four days every 11 years. It can severely disrupt communications on earth and lead to power outages, among other things.