Northern Lights could be incoming midweek after the first powerful X-rated solar flare for many weeks. Satellites in Earth orbit detected an X2.2 class solar flare early on Dec. 8, 2024, which could translate to aurora borealis in a few days — if there’s an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection in its wake.
The explosive action on the sun comes after a lull in our star’s magnetic activity.
Northern Lights: Coronal Mass Ejections
Displays of aurora around Earth are caused by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the sun that interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.
The solar wind is super-charged by coronal mass ejections, clouds of charged particles that are often unleashed from the same sunspots that produce solar flares. CMEs can take a few days to Earth over a few days.
Northern Lights: Magnetic Activity
Although it came after a quiet period on the sun, Sunday’s X flare is exactly what solar physicists expected. According to Spaceweather.com, solar activity has been low for more than a week, but was expected to change this weekend because of a sunspot called 3917, which has been increasing in size and becoming increasingly complex. More X-flares are possible next week because there are two sunspots with unstable magnetic fields, stated the website.
Northern Lights: Solar Maximum
The X flare comes during a more general spike in solar activity, which for much of 2024 has been at a 23-year high. The strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle was an X9.9 on Oct. 3, 2024.
In October, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel announced that the sun had reached its “solar maximum” phase, the peak of its 11-year solar cycle.
That could mean displays of Northern Lights at more southerly latitudes than is typical for at least the next year.
Northern Lights: Best Place To See
If an aurora display is forecast by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, keep an eye on its 30-minute forecast, where the latest updates are posted.
Get to a location low on light pollution, such as a Dark Sky Park or anywhere away from a central urban area. It’s most important to have a northern horizon that’s free from artificial light. If you can’t escape an urban area, ensure there are no bright lights in your field of view, particularly to the north, where displays are most likely.
Northern Lights: How To See And Photograph
Many displays of aurora, particularly from cities where light pollution dampens their brightness, are, in practice, “photographic aurora,” which show up much better in a photo than in reality. So keep your smartphone handy — and engage “night mode” or similar — which will give the grey streaks you see in the sky a greenish or reddish color.
Northern Lights: What ‘Aurora Borealis’ Means
Aurora borealis — the scientific name for the phenomenon — is Latin for “northern dawn.” Galileo Galilei coined the term in 1616, who lived in Italy, where the phenomenon is almost always glimpsed in the northern sky, so it could be mistaken for dawn. “Northern Lights” is the traditional name of the Arctic Circle.
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Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
