The Daily Free Press – Recent solar storm signals mass increase in sun’s activity
Dr. Philip Muirhead and CSP’s Dr. Joshua Semeter talked to The Daily Free Press this week about solar storms and what can be observed of them through aurora.
‘But some particles and magnetic plasma do enter the Earth’s atmosphere if the storm is strong enough. When this happens, magnetic displays such as the northern lights become visible in places further south than where such displays are normally visible.
“Aurora [a natural light display] tells us about the properties of these coronal mass ejections,” Muirhead said. “Unfortunately, the aurora is difficult to see when you have a lot of light pollution, so I don’t know of anyone that was able to see it in the city of Boston.”
The recent storm did produce some low-latitude aurora, Semeter said. Although BU students couldn’t observe this vibrant display, inhabitants of western and northern Massachusetts could.
“Not so much right over Boston, but a little bit north over Acadia National Park [in Maine] and so forth, there were some really nice auroral displays,” Semeter said.’
Read the rest of the Article here: https://dailyfreepress.com/blog/2014/09/25/recent-solar-storm-signals-increase-in-suns-activity/