According to the US weather agency NOAA, solar storms are expected this weekend that could trigger colourful displays of the aurora borealis in North America and Canada.
In the United States, the weather monitoring agency has announced that northern lights could be visible over the northern United States and Canada, as strong geomagnetic storms are expected. These could also light up the skies over Germany, especially in the north and along the coasts, in the night from 5 to 6 June. As hardly any cloud cover was forecast for Friday night into Saturday, the chances are good of catching a glimpse of an impressive aurora borealis.
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The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a warning of a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm. Isolated phases could even reach G4 level (very strong). As a result, the northern lights are expected to be visible in a total of 23 US states in the Northeast, Midwest and West, according to the Washington Times.
The last time spectacular northern lights were seen in Germany was in January, when the aurora lit up the night sky.
Numerous websites that monitor solar storms currently rate the probability as high.
Geomagnetic storms are disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field caused by solar activity. They produce colourful bands of green, red and violet light. In the northern hemisphere they are known as the northern lights or aurora borealis.
Northern lights are best seen with a mobile phone
So what is the best way to observe the spectacular aurora borealis?
If you are hunting for northern lights, you should always keep your eyes fixed on the north.
As astronomy specialists explain, the colours are often easier to make out on a camera or on a mobile phone. Smartphones use a special night mode and longer exposure times. This allows the camera sensors to capture more image information than the human eye can process in real time.
Solar storms can be dangerous
The solar storms that paint the colourful aurora borealis across the sky are part of a complex space-weather system between Earth and the Sun, and they can indeed become dangerous. In 2022, 40 satellites belonging to Elon Musk's Starlink network were caught in a solar storm and burned up.
Long before solar storms get hot enough to melt anything, they can cause disruption, especially to navigation systems. Speaking to MDR, expert Jens Berdermann from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) explains: "Satellites can be affected, power grids can be affected. And services we depend on every day, such as navigation and communication. They are essential to many professions. There are also indirect effects: software, stock trading, medical devices, the economy."
Such disruptions, however, remain relatively rare.
