Rarely seen orange auroras, which are supposed to be impossible to see, and a photobombing meteor recently shone above the U.K. after a "canyon of fire" solar storm smashed into Earth, stunning new images reveal. The auroras were part of a minor (G2) geomagnetic storm — a disturbance in Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere — that was triggered by a fast-moving cloud of magnetized plasma, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), which smashed into Earth just before the auroras appeared. The CME launched from a massive loop of plasma, or solar prominence, which snapped and flung off into space, leaving behind a massive valley in the solar surface known as a "canyon of fire." A similar fiery chasm was left behind by a solar eruption on Halloween. |
Subscribe to the news feed